


Flux

by NetRaptor



Series: NetRaptor's AU Sonicverse [19]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Apocalypse, Chaos Emeralds, Gen, Secret Identity, Velociraptors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 18:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10702893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NetRaptor/pseuds/NetRaptor
Summary: After the events of Sonic Adventure 2, the chaos emeralds are left unbalanced. They begin a cataclysmic flux, one after the other. Sonic and the Freedom Fighters are way out of their depth, and matters aren't helped by the appearance of a strange black hedgehog who kidnaps Tails and who may or may not be Shadow.





	1. Subtle warning

WARNING! This fic contains spoilers for Shadows of Chaos, my adaption of Sonic Adventure 2. 

On Earth it was called a black hole. In space, it was called a collapsed supernova, burning by itself in the arm of a spiral galaxy. But in reality, no one knew what it was, for no one had ever gone near it. 

From ten lightyears, it was a black mass that blotted out the light of the stars around it. 

From five lightyears, it was a shapeless shadow like a gas cloud, and it emitted no light. 

From one lightyear, which was the point where the thing's gravity ought to have crushed an observer, one could begin to see flashes of light that escaped at random from inside the cloud. If someone had sat there on the fringe of this astronomical anomaly, they would begin to make out shapes within this cloud; a star, in fact, burning placidly inside the 'black hole'. Circling this star were several planets. 

One of these planets was populated. And only one inhabitant of this planet knew about the thing encircling their solar system. 

He called it a Chaos Field. 

* * * 

Black gloved fingers typed on a black keyboard, accurate, certain. Words glowed on the screen of a minuscule computer, casting a diffuse glow into the night. The darkness swallowed it up, but two things reflected the green light; a smile and a pair of eyes. 

"Dear Sonic." 

The fingers hovered in thought, then fell to work like the heads of ten predatory birds. 

"It strikes me as funny to refer to you as 'dear'. In some ways you are as dear to me as my very breath, and in others you are nothing but a loathsome insect to crush underfoot. Surely you know who I am. I imagine there are few people whom you have let die. Possibly even arranged their death. But whatever your plan, I have survived, due to the miracles of modern science. I will not trouble you long, but I wanted to inform you that I live. 

Love? 

Hate? 

Twilight." 

* * * 

Sonic awoke with his heart hammering against his ribs. What was that horrible sound? It was like a million demented roosters screaming at once. Or was it a crowd of people laughing through a synthesizer? 

"Knuckles, what's that?" he said. No answer. Knuckles' sleeping bag was empty. "Great." The blue hedgehog scrambled out of his blankets and pulled on his shoes. There were no windows in the cabin, and the only light came from a crack under the door, and thus Sonic was blinded when he opened it and let in the morning sunlight. As his eyes adjusted, he made out the path they had followed the night before, which curved over the hill country of the Floating Island. 

The weird sound was louder now. "What in the world is it?" Sonic wondered as he peered around the corner of the cabin. He had never heard anything like it. He slunk toward it, alert for danger. 

As he arrived at the rear of the cabin, he saw a small wire pen under a stunted palm tree. Knuckles was inside it, collecting eggs from several boxes stacked on end, and surrounding him were a flock of chicken-like birds. They were grey with white heads, and were making the loudest, most horrible sounds Sonic had ever heard. 

He stood with his hands over his ears until Knuckles left the pen, carrying eggs in a blanket. The birds quieted as soon as he left, but they watched him with indignant obsidian eyes. "Good grief, what are those?" Sonic demanded, dropping his hands to his sides. 

Knuckles grinned at him. "Nice to see you up early for a change." He walked toward their campfire in front of the cabin. 

Sonic jogged after him, peeved. "But what are they?" 

"Tinueas," Knuckles replied. "Kind of an exotic chicken. Mighty raises them up here, and we eat their eggs." He opened the folded blanket and showed Sonic a collection of small brown spheres. 

Sonic watched Knuckles set them down and poke up the smouldering fire. "They woke me up." 

"Good for your reflexes," said the echidna. "Get me the spider and the skillet, will you?" 

Sonic entered the dark cabin and felt his way toward Knuckles' backpack. The cabin was a rough building made of whole palm trees, driftwood, boulders, and whatever else Knuckles could find at the time. The result was a lopsided shelter with no windows and little headroom, but it kept the weather out and could probably withstand a hurricane. Many of their kind were scattered around the Floating Island, and Knuckles had been taking Sonic on a walking tour of all of them. 

After being in the bright sun, Sonic could see nothing. He groped among his own blankets, pulled out the green Chaos Emerald and held it up. By its glow he found the cooking utensils and carried them outside. 

"Thanks," said Knuckles. He set the spider's four wire legs on the edges of the campfire, and hung the skillet in the center, over the heat. "Count yourself lucky, grasshopper. You get fried eggs for breakfast." 

"Call me grasshopper again and you'll be wearing fried eggs," said Sonic, sitting on a rock. "But if I had to have dates and bananas one more meal, I'd nut up." 

"You need the vitamins," said Knuckles, without looking up from the skillet. 

"I thought people who walk a thousand miles a day needed protein," said Sonic, also watching the eggs and feeling his mouth begin to water. 

"The trouble with you is protein was all you were eating," said Knuckles. "I put you on an echidna apprentice diet." 

"I'm not your apprentice." 

"Oh yes you are. Teleport out to the tinuea coop and back. See if I got all the eggs." 

Sonic looked down at the chaos emerald in his hand. He had used it so much in the past two weeks that his brain was tired. He forced himself to concentrate on the tinuea coop and muttered, "Chaos relocate." 

The world shifted and rearranged itself, and he was fifty feet from his target spot, up the hill behind the cabin. "Great shot, Sonic," he muttered. He forced his weary brain to concentrate on a spot beside the campfire and said, "Chaos relocate." He teleported onto the path leading up to the cabin, ten feet from where he meant to land. 

Knuckles watched him as he walked up the hill and flopped on the ground. "I quit," said Sonic, throwing the emerald at the cabin wall and folding his arms around his knees. "That was humiliating." 

Knuckles said nothing for several minutes. He flipped three eggs onto a chipped plate and handed it to Sonic before he said, "Maybe we should do something else for a while." 

"I'm game," said the hedgehog, wolfing the hot food with his fingers. "Could I go Super like normal? Just for a while?" 

"I was thinking of something different," said Knuckles, also eating with his fingers. "See that valley down there? That's the Marble Garden ruins. Outside of it is a hovertop station." 

"Dude!" exclaimed Sonic, straightening up. "You'd actually let me? You got mad last time I used it!" 

"That's because last time you used it you ran me over," said the echidna. "Go down there, spend the day. I'm going to do some more research." 

"The great guru needs to stay ahead of his pupil," said Sonic, helping himself to more eggs. His spirits had improved wonderfully. A hovertop was a round disk that travelled at fantastic speeds while spinning, a relic of the ancient echidnas. Knuckles and the Chaotix used it sometimes, but only Sonic could put the top through its paces. 

Fifteen minutes later Sonic had vanished, breakfast was cleaned up, and Knuckles was rummaging through his backpack. Hidden in a padded pocket was a tiny computer, a piece of technology the entertainment-starved Sonic would have killed him for. Knuckles flipped it on and picked up several messages. There were some reports from the Chaotix, who were supposed to look after things while Knuckles was off with Sonic. In reality, they amused themselves by sending Knuckles lies about the bizarre things they had done. Today they were bungee-jumping from the edge of the island. There was a letter from Tails to Sonic, full of news from Knothole. And there was a message from Sally with an attached document. She said that an unsolicited letter had arrived for Sonic, from someone named Twilight. 

Knuckles hesitated, his finger on the Open button. He shouldn't read Sonic's mail ... but 'Twilight' ... maybe it was something about Shadow ... Sonic had taken his death so hard, a sick joke like this might send him into depression, right when his Chaos Emerald training was getting somewhere ... 

Knuckles opened it. 

After he read it he sat for a while, gazing at the mountains in the distance without seeing them.

* * *

Sonic leaned hard to the left, then the right, guiding the spinning disk in a zigzag path through the ruins. It moved with minute precision, changing directions whenever the hedgehog shifted his weight. He rode it around pillars, over moss-grown floors, up collapsed walls and under stone arches, quick as breath. 

"Has it only been two weeks?" he wondered as he played. Two long weeks alone with Knuckles and the Chaos Emeralds. A month before that, Sonic had been in space, trying to keep an old space station from falling from orbit and punching a hole in Mobius. Shadow, a black hedgehog with a death wish, had gone from bitter enemy to a close friend in a matter of minutes, as the pair joined forces to attack a monster that inhabited the space station. They had defeated the monster, and Sonic had nearly convinced Shadow to return to Mobius, when a freak accident had snapped Shadow's fragile hold on life ... 

Sonic circled a pillar too closely, clipped it and bounced off. It took him a few seconds to regain control, but his little escapade did not erase the memory of watching the life leave the other hedgehog's broken body, even as Shadow's chao flew out to them, its mind split with grief ... 

It hurt. Sonic reacted to pain like he did everything else--with fierce physical action. He ran faster, spinning the disk into a blur, sending it zipping over the landscape, weaving around obstacles, shooting up hillsides and down again. "Shadow's gone," he told himself. "You can't bring him back. Deal with it." 

Sonic had welcomed Knuckles' offer to train him in Chaos Emerald usage as a diversion, something to make him forget his grief. But Shadow's death haunted him, as well as the guilty feeling that if not for him, Shadow would be alive. If he had only noticed the extra emerald--if he had only marked it--if he had only left it with his chao--if only--if only-- 

The pointed tip of the disk struck a jagged stone and stopped dead, flinging Sonic fifteen feet. He landed in a ball, bounced to a halt, uncurled and hurled verbal abuse at the offending hovertop. It felt good to yell at something, even if it was only an inanimate object. 

His rage vented, Sonic lay where he had landed, enjoying the stillness. Now that he had stopped moving, he could hear the tiny sounds that made up the quiet of Marble Gardens: the tick of sunwarmed stone, the tumble of a pebble, the whisper of wind in the grass. "I wish Tails were here," he thought suddenly. He remembered their exploration of the Floating Island with an irritated Knuckles pursuing them. He also thought of the prophetic wall painting he and Tails had seen, a copy of which Robotnik had destroyed. 

Sonic got up and trotted off to look for it, tossing a last glare at the hovertop as he went. 

* * * 

It was late afternoon when Sonic galloped up the trail to their camp, tired and cheerful. Knuckles was sitting under a tree with scrolls, ancient parchments and dusty books open on the grass around him. He looked up as Sonic approached. "What are you doing here? Get lost, you're too early." 

"The hedgehog is hungry," Sonic replied. "You would be, too, if you'd rode that hovertop all day instead of ... reading." He pronounced the last word on a note of disgust. 

Knuckles shook a spiked fist at him. "If not for this reading, you'd never learn to Chaos Control, let alone Chaos See or Chaos Shift." 

"Why not Chaos Jump or Chaos Speed or Chaos Pull?" said Sonic. He bent and looked at the indecipherable scrawl on a nearby scroll. "What language is this?" 

"Obviously not yours," said Knuckles, returning his gaze to the parchment he was translating. "If you're hungry, our packs are inside the cabin." 

"All right!" said Sonic, and dashed away, scattering earth and torn grass all over Knuckles' research. 

"Hey!" the echidna yelled, then returned to his work, unperturbed. 

A few minutes later, a yell from the hedgehog drew his attention. Knuckles glanced up and saw the campfire leap ten feet high, as if Sonic had poured gasoline on it. Startled, Knuckles leaped over his papers and ran up the hill. 

The flames died down as Knuckles approached. Sonic was standing well back, watching the fire with a look of shock. He looked around as Knuckles jogged up. "I didn't do anything." 

"You had to do something," said the echidna, watching the fire. "I put it out this morning." 

"All I did was stir it with a stick," said Sonic, holding up the stick in his hand as evidence. "Then it exploded. What is this, dynamite?" 

Knuckles took the stick and inspected it. "No, it's just pine. That doesn't explode." 

The two gazed at the campfire, which was now the proper size for a campfire and burning merrily. Sonic pointed a finger at it and exclaimed, "Chaos Fire!" Nothing happened. 

Knuckles sideyed him. "Right. Why don't you let me light the fire from now on?" 

"You got it," said Sonic, backing away a step. "We don't start on the red emerald yet, do we?" 

"No," said Knuckles, although he was thinking the same thing himself--the red emerald's elemental power was fire. He cautiously approached the fire, circled it, and tossed a log on it from their small pile of firewood. The fire did not explode. 

At any rate, after supper that night, Sonic and Knuckles took turns pouring water on it before retiring to the cabin for the night. 

Sonic curled up in his sleeping bag and was dozing off when Knuckles said, "Know anyone named Twilight?" 

Sonic shook himself awake and turned his head toward where he knew the echidna lay. "No, don't think so. That's a pretty common name, though." 

There was a short silence, and Sonic was drifting to sleep again when Knuckles said, "Shadow didn't go by a nickname, did he?" 

"No." Then Sonic's brain snapped awake. "Why?" 

Knuckles said nothing. 

Sonic sat up. "Why, Knux? Is there somebody like Shadow going by Twilight?" 

Knuckles said quietly, "He's dead, Sonic." 

"I know, I know, but Twilight and Shadow--what have you heard? Spill, man!" 

Knuckles' sleeping bag rustled, and Sonic heard him unzip his pack. A moment later there was a click, and a small green screen lit up. Sonic's eyes narrowed. "You brought a palmtop?" 

Knuckles handed it to him. "For communication purposes only. And don't ask to play Caterpillar." 

But Sonic's eyes were glued to the words on the little screen. Knuckles watched his face, illuminated in shades of green, as Sonic's eyes grew round and his mouth fell open. Several minutes passed. At last he handed the computer back to the echidna and sat staring blindly into the darkness. "He survived." 

Knuckles turned off the computer and tucked it into his bag, heart sinking. He knew Sonic would react this way. 

"He survived," Sonic repeated, an odd note in his voice. "And he thinks I tried to kill him." 

"Hold on," said Knuckles. "Is there anyone else you might have nearly killed?" 

"No," said Sonic automatically. "Yes," he added. "One of the Mecha bots. I've almost killed them loads of times." 

"It didn't sound like Metal Sonic," said Knuckles, resting his chin in one hand. "You aren't dear to him at all." 

"And Robo Knux wouldn't bother to act mysterious," said Sonic. "He'd come right out and tell me he hated me." He hesitated. "It sounds like Shadow to me." 

"Sonic ..." 

"He could have survived, Knuckles!" snapped Sonic. "Nox might have revived him! You know he carried him toward Mobius!" 

"You told me Shadow was aging," replied Knuckles, trying to control his temper. "Even if he somehow survived becoming un-invincible in outer space--the emeralds stopped, remember--he would continue to age until he died." 

"Then I'm going to find him before he does," replied the hedgehog, crawling out of bed. 

"Where are you going?" 

"To find him!" 

Knuckles smirked. "The Floating Island is hovering at five thousand feet, we're miles from a teleporter, and even if you could control your Chaos Relocates, you have no idea where he's writing from." 

Sonic had wrenched the door open and was standing in the moonlight, looking sheepish. "I'm going for a run anyway." He whisked outside, and a moment later a sonic boom echoed over the hills. 

Knuckles crawled out of his sleeping bag and stood in the doorway, looking out at the moonlit landscape. Sonic was probably miles away by now. The echidna hammered a fist into the doorway. He knew Sonic would react this way. He shouldn't have shown him that letter. 

The moons had risen an hour ago, and hung side by side, a tiny half disk and a large half disk. While they were at half phase, one could not see the monstrous crater in the large moon that both startled and grieved all of planet Mobius every night. The two disks were quite close together tonight, closer than he had ever seen them. In fact ... 

Knuckles straightened. They could only move so close if they were going to eclipse. He was no astronomer, but he knew the moons had not lined up in more than a thousand years. Their orbits were too different. He also knew that the combined pull of both moons would have disastrous effects on Mobius. 

"Darn you Robotnik," Knuckles muttered through his teeth. "I hope this hurts you the worst." After a moment he returned inside, flicked on his palmtop, and typed a message to Sally with his thumbs. "Moons might eclipse. Look it up and see whats wrong. K." 

He tucked the gadget back into his pack and crawled back into his sleeping bag. He didn't want to worry about Sonic anymore.


	2. Chaos sight

Knothole village was awakened at four in the morning by a bang like an exploding bomb. Sleepy heads peered out of windows, doors opened. Tails tumbled out of bed, tugged his shoes on, and staggered outside with the rest, rubbing his eyes. It was deep twilight, as the sun would not rise for another hour. There was no smoke or other indication of what had happened. 

Tails yawned and plodded over to Sally, who was wearing a bathrobe and looking rumpled. "Tails? What happened?" she asked. 

"I donno," said the fox. "It sounded like one of those explosives me and Sonic made last summer. But we haven't had any gunpowder for ages." 

"Maybe you should check your workshop and see if everything's okay," said the squirrel. 

Tails walked toward the ramshackle shed that served as his workshop, wishing Sonic was there. He would have made this seem like a grand adventure. 

The workshop looked okay ... uh oh. His feet crunched on broken glass. The ground around the shed was littered with it, and all the windows had been broken out. 

He unlocked the door, swung it open, and was struck by the odor of hot metal and burning rubber. "Oh great," he muttered, and flipped on the light switch. 

The Cyclone, a small machine that could transform into a plane, a walker or a car at the touch of a button, lay on its side in walker-form. The left side was blackened, and two armor panels had been blown off. A good deal of the contents of the shelves were in the floor. The fox gingerly picked his way though the mess to the Cyclone, half wondering if it would blow his head off. But nothing happened, and he peered into the hole in its side. 

Then he groaned. There was a pressurized hub in the middle of the Cyclone that worked the hydraulics needed for transformation. This hub had ruptured and damaged all the machinery around it. The fox slumped back on his tails. "Just great," he said. "That thing wasn't cheap." 

He grabbed a parts catalog from the floor and went to tell Sally what had happened. 

* * * 

Knuckles awoke to the sound of electronic beeping. He lifted his head and squinted. The cabin door stood open, and a bar of sunlight slanted across his sleeping bag. Sonic was sitting in the doorway, bent over Knuckles' palmtop, playing Caterpillar with the utmost concentration. 

The echidna sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I told you not to take that." 

"I didn't take it, I borrowed it," Sonic replied, without looking up. "I checked your mail. Espio says that he's vanished for good. Vector says that Espio and Charmy had a fight and Charmy stung Espio. I got one from Tails." 

"I told those two not to fight," Knuckles growled. "I hope Espio's really sick. Give me my computer." 

He grabbed at it, but Sonic held it out of his reach. "Hey, I'm not done." 

"Hand it over or you skip breakfast." 

"Ooo, I'm scared," Sonic replied, but he gave Knuckles the palmtop. "Tails said the Cyclone blew up," the hedgehog added, as Knuckles read his electronic mail. "The hydraulic pressure hub ruptured. He's got to buy a new one." 

"Too bad for Tails," said Knuckles. "Those are expensive." 

"He had to special-order the last one," said Sonic, standing up and brushing himself off. He snickered. "I'll bet they thought a bomb had gone off." 

Knuckles said nothing. After a moment Sonic picked up the green chaos emerald from its place with the other gems and Chaos Relocated himself all over the campsite. Knuckles pretended to ignore him, but he was glad that the hedgehog was acting normal again. Perhaps he had forgotten the strange note from the Shadow impersonator. 

Sonic continued to behave normally as the day wore on, and it seemed that his break the day before had done him good. His Chaos Relocates' accuracy had improved, and Knuckles had him start studying Chaos See, which was the power native to the amber emerald. Once Sonic could use each emerald's ability through the ruling green, they could start work on the more advanced powers, like healing and timeshifting. 

That evening, as Knuckles was preparing supper (he wouldn't let Sonic near the fire), Sonic grabbed the palmtop again. There were two letters from Sally. One was a document filled with astronomy information for Knuckles, and the other ... 

"Dear Sonic, 

"It seems that my fate is bound up with you no matter where I turn. Alas, I cannot harm you--not you, my friend. Although I have plotted vengeance, I find I cannot carry it out. But my plans involve you anyway. I need your knowledge, your strength, your green chaos emerald. It may be some time before I locate you, for this world is strange to me. Do not fear me. Do not seek me. I will come to you." 

"Twilight." 

Sonic looked up at Knuckles, the color draining from his face. "I got another letter from him," he whispered. 

Knuckles snatched the computer and scanned the note. It was even more Shadow-like than the first one. Sonic leaned against the cabin wall for support and stared into the distance. "He needs me," he muttered. He passed a hand over his eyes. "Knuckles, he said he needs me." 

"He wants what you have," Knuckles corrected. He studied the screen uneasily. "I don't like this, Sonic. He sounds like a killer." 

"That's how he was," Sonic replied, eyes unfocused. "He talked in riddles. He hated everything. But he won't hurt me. He said so." 

Knuckles pressed his lips together and did not reply. Neither spoke as they ate dinner and retired to their sleeping bags. But Knuckles sat with the tiny screen in his lap hours after Sonic was asleep, brow furrowed, as he pondered first Sally's astronomy information, then Twilight's letter. 

* * * 

The Cyclone walked with a limp, and every four steps gave a hiccup that Tails did not like. But it still worked, and he had no other way of moving it to Riverbase for repairs. 

The fox had packed a dufflebag, said goodbye to the Freedom Fighters, and rode his little blue walker out of Knothole Village, bound for Riverbase, a town fifty miles to the south and west. It was built over the Great River, and had survived Robotnik's reign. Now it was a thriving city, bustling with traffic that traveled up and down the river. They were the closest place Tails could buy the specialized, rare hydraulic parts he used in his mechanical creations. He wondered if the Cyclone could make it so far, but he had packed his jet anklets in case he had to walk. If worst came to worst, he could track down Slasher, who was down at Riverbase for a few weeks as Sally's emissary. Tails had a vague idea that she was signing papers of some kind. 

The road cut its way through the woods, its twenty-year-old pavement eroded away to dirt between islands of tarmac. Several miles of it had been oiled, to pack it firmer for the heavy equipment rolling into the reconstruction site in Mobitropolis, but Tails was travelling in the opposite direction. Repaving the roads was only one of the things Knothole had to worry about, hence the reason an overworked Sally had dispatched Slasher to Riverbase. Tails guided the limping Cyclone among the potholes, wondering when the roads would be repaired. 

A strange sound touched the fox's ears over the clanking of his machine. He stopped it and stood idling, head turning from side to side. Was it a big truck? He couldn't imagine what a truck might be doing on this road, but perhaps he had better move clear ... or was it a train? It was a rumble like an approaching train. 

The trees around him swayed, and the Cyclone rocked. Then the sound died away, and the forest stilled. 

Tails had never experienced an earthquake before, and thus it was several minutes before he figured out what had happened. For some reason an illogical panic swept him, and left him with damp palms and bristling fur. Earthquakes were something they had in other places, not in the Great Forest. The only time the Great Forest had earthquakes was in the year 800, when a volcano in the northeast had erupted. Was there another volcano somewhere? 

The fox forced himself to calm down and push the Cyclone into Drive once more. Maybe a plate had shifted, and this had been a freak tremor. Yeah, that was all it was. 

But he was calling home as soon as he got to Riverbase to ask what had happened. 

* * * 

Sonic sat in the shade of a tree near the campsite, squinting into the green jewel in his hands. He was trying to Chaos See, which, according to Knuckles, was an actual power and not merely crystal gazing. Sonic sensed the various frequencies within the tiny vibration of the emerald, and if he concentrated, he could find Chaos Relocate, and beneath it, Chaos Control, which was a timestop. Chaos See was supposedly below them, but Sonic could not focus deep enough. He was afraid to empty his mind and open himself to the powers of Chaos, no matter what Knuckles said. If Sonic let the emeralds take over his mind, then who was in control? Using the emeralds was one thing. Trusting them was another. 

Twilight's letter kept drifting through his mind. If Twilight was Shadow ... but if he wasn't Shadow ... The unasked questions kept him from concentrating. He lifted his blue head and massaged his neck, which was growing stiff. Knuckles had told him to practice, then had wandered off, and the hills were quiet and empty. Their open spaces beckoned to Sonic, and he felt his legs crying out for a run, but he bent over his emerald again. No, he must master this. He'd be one up on Shadow. 

Suddenly he stiffened and stared. Something had clicked and he was Seeing. But he had no idea how to control it or make it stop. He sat as still as a statue, a look of blank horror on his face. The minutes ticked by. Sonic remained motionless, held in the grip of the Chaos Emerald, which was flaming with green fire. He could not escape, could not move, could not break its hold. He began to shudder, his breath coming in gasps. Still he stared, was forced to see, and could not tear away. 

His lips moved as sweat rolled down his face. He had to free himself of the flood of images--had to master it--"No, no, no NO!" he whispered, his voice rising to a desperate scream. 

The emerald dimmed. Sonic fell on his back and lay still, eyes closed, sweat pouring off him. 

An hour later Knuckles found him in a sleep of faint, his face still distorted in a look of horror. Rather frightened, Knuckles pulled the emerald from Sonic's hand and shook him. Sonic's head tossed from side to side, and he awoke with a groan. "Kn-Knux. What happened?" 

"I was going to ask you that," said the echidna, eyes wide. "Did you pass out?" 

Sonic rubbed his head and shot a poisonous glare at the green gem. "I Chaos Saw, all right. You didn't tell me how to make it stop." 

Knuckles was nonplussed. "Isn't it like a timestop? You start it, you stop it?" 

"No." Sonic glared at him, anger rising as a reaction to his terror. "I'm never doing that again!" 

"Oh yes you are," said Knuckles, bristling. "You're going to learn to control it." 

"I can't control that!" Sonic retorted. "You know what I saw? I saw tidal waves, and cities levelled by earthquakes, and loads of dead people, and Mobius made into a wasteland! Control that!" 

He expected a punch in the nose, but instead Knuckles sank back on his heels, turning pale. "You saw that?" 

"And a bunch of other stuff, too," Sonic said, sullenly. "What's with you?" 

"Sonic ..." Knuckles swallowed and looked at the grass. "The moons are going to eclipse, and when they do, they'll cause earthquakes and tidal waves." 

There was a brief silence. Sonic and Knuckles stared at each other. 

"You mean it's real?" Sonic said. 

Knuckles nodded. "I asked Sally for the information ... she must have dumped it from Nicole without reading it." 

"What'll happen?" Sonic reached for his emerald in the grass, but hesitated and withdrew his hand. 

Knuckles watched him. "Well, they'll eclipse, and for a day or two there will be ten to twenty foot land tides, then it'll subside until next month." 

Sonic eyed him. "What's a land tide?" 

Knuckles moved his hands in wave motions. "When the ground moves and swells like the ocean because the moon's pull is too strong." 

The hedgehog looked blank. He couldn't picture a land tide. "The whole world?" 

"Just parts of it," Knuckles replied. "But it'll cause massive earthquakes. Eventually all of Mobius's land masses will liquify, and, uh, it'll be uninhabitable." 

This was met with an uncomprehending stare. "No way," said Sonic. "No way. You're kidding me." 

"I wish," said Knuckles. "Look at the moons tonight." 

Sonic gazed at him another moment, then scrambled to his feet. "I gotta get outta here for a while." And he was gone in a rush of wind. 

Knuckles watched the hedgehog until he vanished over the horizon, then picked up the green emerald and looked at it. There was a panic building inside him. He could see that Mobius would be destroyed, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. 

The echidna slung the emerald at the ground, shouted a curse, then ran and glided off the hilltop. How did anyone stop two moons from crossing paths? How did anyone stop a world from ending?


	3. Double flux

The sun was setting as Slasher, the winged velociraptor, stepped onto the pavement and flexed her wings. She had writers' cramp in her right claw from having to sign her name with three fingers and no thumb, and she was chilled from standing under an air conditioning vent for six hours. 

She opened her wings, leaped into the air, and flew to a rooftop. The summer heat beat up at her as she landed, and warmed her icy feet. Bliss. She crouched close to the heated tiles and peered at the street below. Mobians went about their business and hovercars travelled up and down. There were no robots in sight, for they were not allowed inside Riverbase. Slasher rested her chin on the roof margin and closed her eyes. Her brain was tired, and she was in a quiet, warm place. She was hungry, too, but dinner could wait until she was warm again ... 

A combination of hearing and smell told her of his arrival before she opened her eyes. She lifted her head and focused one eye on the figure kneeling in the far corner of the roof. He watched her without moving, and she did the same. He was a black hedgehog with a gold plate around his neck, and black gloves with claws. 

He stood up, and she did too. Her nostrils worked, trying to catch his scent. 

"Hello, Slasher," he said quietly. 

"Hello," the raptor replied, cocking one eye at him, then the other. "Do I know you?" She had only seen Shadow once, up close. A breeze was blowing away his scent. 

"I know you, but you don't know me," said the stranger. "I'm looking for Sonic." 

"He's not here," said Slasher, teeth flashing as she spoke. "Why do you want him?" 

"Because I need him," replied the black hedgehog. "I must find him before the flux or all will be lost." 

Slasher peered at him, a red flag waving in her mind. There was something elusive about this hedgehog, as if his generic manner were a mask. "No," she said evenly. "He's on vacation right now and can't be bothered by fans." 

The black hedgehog lowered his head, but kept his eyes on Slasher. His voice was a snarl. "Take me to him, reptile." 

The raptor bared her teeth. "Never, rodent." 

They faced each other for a long moment, staring the other down. "Very well," said the black hedgehog at last. "I will find him myself, and you will be sorry when I do." He whirled and vaulted from the roof. 

In a flash Slasher was after him. 

She had trailed Sonic before and knew that in a city with few open spaces and lots of obstacles, he could only achieve forty to sixty miles an hour at a stretch. She was a decent runner, but her real power was in her wings. Thus she took to the air and flew after the black shape in the street below. He was slower than Sonic, but had his lightning-quick direction changes, and Slasher lost sight of him several times. 

"Who is that insolent hedgehog?" she wondered as she glided over a street, following her target on the sidewalk below. Was it Shadow? Or was it someone else? She was certain she had met him before, but he was in disguise now, and she couldn't place him. What did he want with Sonic? 

She rounded the corner of a building, passed over him and swooped back. Tails? Was that Tails? Yes, the Cyclone was parked in the mouth of a garage, and the fox was standing in its driveway, talking to the black hedgehog. Suspicious and worried, Slasher landed on a sloped roof, folded her wings like a great predatory bird, and watched. 

She couldn't hear what they were saying, but Tails was gesturing to the Cyclone, probably bragging about it. What was he doing in Riverbase? Maybe he needed specialized work on his mech. She didn't want him talking to that maniac hedgehog. He might hurt him or-- 

Slasher whirled. Another velociraptor had crept up the opposite slope of the roof and was perched on the ridge, its head and tail low. For one terrified instant Slasher thought it was Leviathan resurrected, then saw that this raptor had no robot parts. It was colored like herself, brown with chocolate stripes, and its eyes burned yellow. Its teeth bared in a hiss. Slasher hissed back, suddenly wishing she weren't facing uphill. 

The other raptor sprang down the roof, crashed into Slasher and knocked her off the roof. The two struck the pavement, Slasher on the bottom. She landed on her left wing and felt the bone snap. She shrieked. 

The enemy raptor slashed at her belly with its toe claws, but Slasher lashed out and knocked it away. She scrambled to her feet, an uncontrollable whine of pain in her throat. Her left wing hung haphazardly, the long pinions dragging. 

The other raptor's jaws opened in a laugh. 

"Why did you attack me?" Slasher panted. It made no sense. Raptors didn't attack each other unless threatened. She was unaware that other velociraptors existed on Mobius, except for Flicky Island. Her injured wing sent electrical shockwaves of agony through her body, and her left arm was contracting into a tight knot. 

"You got in my way," the strange raptor growled in the tongue of dinosaurs. "Die!" 

It sprang, jaws open. Slasher whirled and struck it with her muscular tail, knocking it into the wall of the nearest building. The pain was making the world pitch and roll. Slasher was having trouble keeping her balance. Wait--the other raptor was having trouble, too. The world was indeed pitching. Undeterred, the other raptor ran at Slasher again and slapped her with its own tail. Slasher nearly fell, but staggered and caught herself. Cracks snaked up a nearby wall, and mortar fell from somewhere above. "Stop this!" Slasher roared. "We're in danger, this is an earthquake!" 

The raptor sprang at her again and hissed, "So?" Slasher rose to meet it, wings outstretched-- 

Something moved behind her. She glimpsed the black hedgehog, arms upraised with a brick clutched in both hands. Then the world exploded into hot white light, and whirled away in fragments and snowflakes into darkness. 

* * * 

The earthquake shook Riverbase, cracking foundations and tearing apart buildings. It rippled on into the Great Forest, making the trees sway and snap, and struck Knothole. The Freedom Fighters ran for the safety of the outdoors, away from falling objects. The quake rolled on for miles, finally dying out somewhere among the Ice Cap mountains in the northwest. 

But it was followed by other earthquakes, longer and more severe. The residents of Knothole pitched tents out in the plain between the forest and the remains of Robotropolis, and suffered the shaking ground with animal patience. No one had the time to worry about anything else, but Sally's face took on a drawn, tense look. Slasher and Tails were in Riverbase, and a city was no place to be during geologic upheaval. But communication lines were jammed, and she had no way of contacting them. 

The quakes intensified until dusk, when they became so violent that the ground was moving in water-like ripples. The reason for this became apparent when the moons lifted above the horizon, aligned one behind the other. The small moon was visible through the crater in the large one, and the glow from both created an unearthly halo in the sky. Their combined gravity exerted such pressure on Mobius that the planet's continents heaved and cracked, and massive tidal waves swept the coast with as much power as the water monster Perfect Chaos. 

By dawn the moons began to move apart, and the earthquakes lessened in frequency and strength. 

The Floating Island had suffered minor earthquakes, but it had not been affected as harshly as the rest of Mobius. Sonic and Knuckles stayed awake all night, trying to contact Knothole via an audio program on Knuckles' computer. When it was not Sonic's turn, he sat with the seven Chaos Emeralds lying around him, holding the indigo Chaos Emerald in both hands, as it was his favorite of the seven. "It's happening," he muttered once in a while. "The earthquakes. They're happening. I saw it." 

Towards dawn, as the island stopped rocking and Knuckles was dozing, he heard Sonic mutter, "I hope Tails is all right ... if he went to Riverbase in this ..." 

Knuckles opened his eyes and saw Sonic turning the green gem over and over, as if thinking. 

"I could try to See ... but I'm not sure ..." 

Knuckles yawned and sat up. "What are you mumbling about?" 

Sonic eyed him and fidgeted. "Nothing. I need to run." 

"Why are you worried about Tails?" 

"No reason," said Sonic, without meeting his friend's gaze. 

Knuckles watched the hedgehog's nervous hands toying with the green stone. "Did you See something?" 

"No! Well, maybe ..." Sonic met Knuckles' eyes and looked down. When Knuckles said nothing, Sonic laid his ears back. "Okay, yeah, I saw Tails, all right? And he was scared and maybe hurt. And now with these earthquakes going on, I'm afraid it's happened." 

He stood up and began to pace. "I wish I'd never laid eyes on these stupid Chaos Emeralds! If not for them, the moon wouldn't have a chunk missing and this wouldn't have happened!" He turned on Knuckles. "And don't you contradict me, I'm sick of you being all high and mighty, I'm sick of this island and I'm sick of these emeralds and I'm going home!" He held up his emerald and snarled, "Chaos Relocate!" There was a green flash, and the hedgehog was gone. 

"Fine, go," said Knuckles to the spot where he had been. "I'm sick of you, too." 

* * * 

"Dear Sonic, 

"The first flux has occurred. It was a small one and slightly blue. But they will intensify, and I must find you at all costs. Your life hangs in the balance. Do not use the chaos emeralds! You have no idea of the power they contain, and until I come to you, they pose a great threat to your life. I hope this letter finds you well and unharmed after the earthquakes of two days ago. 

"Twilight." 

* * * 

Two days had elapsed since the eclipse, and aftershocks kept coming. Sally estimated that the entire Great Forest had been elevated by a foot, and in many places the once-smooth ground was rough and broken. There had been no causalties among the Freedom Fighters, but there were many scrapes and bruises. 

Slasher and Tails had not returned. Sonic had arrived in Knothole and was immediately pounced on by a distraught Sally, who was stressed, afraid, and needed moral support. She was looked upon as a leader in the crisis, and the squirrel was growing exhausted and fearful of what the future held. On top of that, she was fretting over Tails and Slashers' absence. But Sonic's presence was reassuring, and he supported her as best as he could. 

He saw that he wouldn't be able to leave Sally for several days, and chafed at the delay, but tried to keep quiet about it. Chances were that Tails was fine, and was out helping with relief work. Slasher, too. Sonic imagined them rescuing people from collapsed buildings, too busy to call home. 

Despite this rosy image, another four days passed without any word from the two prodigals. Communication lines reopened and Sally reached Slasher's communicator, but there was no answer. Tails' communicator was switched off, as was the Cyclone's radio. It seemed ominous to Sonic, who was already expecting the worst, and he ached to dash down to Riverbase and look for them. 

He was thrown off kilter by another letter from Twilight (or Shadow, as Sonic called him mentally). It was slightly more friendly that the others, and seemed concerned with Sonic's safety. 

"I'm not going to stop using the emeralds," Sonic muttered to himself, reading the letter displayed on Nicole's minuscule screen. "Sorry, Shadow. Nice to know you're alive, though. I wonder what this flux thing is he's talking about?" 

He closed the letter. "Nicole, define 'flux'." 

"Affirmative, Sonic," said the computer in a bland feminine voice. "Flux: noun. A discharge of energy." 

"That's a big help," said Sonic, frowning. "Thanks, Nicole." 

He was sitting on a rock not far from the Knothole camp, holding Nicole, when Sally came looking for him. "Hi Sonic. Get another letter?" 

"Yeah," said the hedgehog, scooting over so she could sit beside him. "Weird as ever. Sal, do you know what a flux is?" 

"I have informed him, Sally," said Nicole. 

The squirrel smiled and took the palmtop. "Did he understand your definition?" 

"Negative." 

"I did, too," yelped Sonic. "It's an energy discharge. I was just trying to figure out the letter. Check it out." 

Sally shook her auburn hair out of her eyes and scanned Nicole's screen. "He said it's a small flux and slightly blue. What's that mean?" 

"You got me," said Sonic, shrugging. "Why do you think I'm trying to figure it out?" 

"Sonic, you're thinking!" said Sally with mock surprise, pushing him. "I never thought it of you!" 

"Cut it out," he said, stifling a smile. "This is serious. It's like he knows why everything's happening and he's giving me clues." 

"Maybe he meant the bi-lunar eclipse," said Sally. "That discharged a lot of power, I bet." 

"But why the blue thing? Was it sad? I don't get it." 

Sally shook her head. "Have you tried writing back to him?" 

"No," said Sonic. "He writes from a different address each time. I don't think he wants me to reply." 

"It's worth a shot," said Sally. Her blue eyes, which for a moment had sparkled with good humor, became weary and grey again. "I have to go back to the camp now. Will you set up the two tents on the far side again? The last aftershock knocked them down." 

"Sure," said Sonic. "Give me a minute to reply." 

Sally walked off, and Sonic watched her, noting how she carried her head high, to face the trials of leadership, despite her rumpled fur and clothing that had not been washed in three days. He felt a surge of emotion, although he wasn't sure what it was; he wanted to follow her, and stay at her side, and help her lead, and shield her from harm. A second later it was gone and he wondered what he had been thinking. He bent over Nicole. 

"Dear Twilight, 

I'm fine thanks. I'm going to use the emeralds as much as I like. Do you know something about the moons, because you mentioned a flux and I wondered what you meant. 

"Sonic." 

* * * 

Slasher opened one eye. The light made her head pound, and she closed it again. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the idea that she needed to do something, but the pain in her head and left wing kept her from remembering. She lay still, letting her aching body rest as her senses kicked in. She was lying in a quiet place, and there were sirens in the distance. The ground under her felt like pavement, and her nostrils were full of ashy plaster dust. 

The raptor opened her eye again. She couldn't open her other eye--it felt hot and swollen, as if it had a sharp splinter lodged in it. She dragged one forepaw up to her head, and her claws grated on dirt. Her skin was caked with thick white dust. She pawed clumsily at her injured eye, but could feel nothing sticking out of it. Perhaps it was full of dirt. 

Her head felt as big as a washtub, but by bracing herself with her forearms, she managed it lift it a few inches. She was lying in a pile of rubble in the shadow of two buildings that looked liable to collapse any moment, for their walls were cracked and the wall of one bulged outward. 

Where was she? Why was she not in Knothole, and why was she in such pain? She felt as weak as water, and could scarcely drag herself out of the rubble. Her back legs quivered and refused to work. She groaned and lay on her right side, her broken wing stretched out at a crazy angle. Thirst. She would die for a drink of water. She had to get off this narrow street, get out where someone would see and help her ... 

The dinosaur coughed and struggled to get her feet under her. Her back legs moved a little more than before, but she could not stand, not yet. She sank back to the debris-littered pavement and noticed the object strapped to her left wrist. She twisted her head around to look at it with her good eye. Her communicator! The message light was blinking. She scraped grime from its liquid crystal face and squinted at it. Sally had tried to contact her eleven times. Good grief, how long had she been here? 

It came back to her as she lay in a half-crouch, her hind legs bunched beneath her. Tails! Tails had been here, and so had that black hedgehog, and another raptor, who had broken her wing. She recalled something about an earthquake. It must have been a bad one, judging from the condition of the street. She rubbed her blind eye feebly with a grimy paw, and felt it begin to water. Maybe it would flush out the dirt. 

Slasher dragged herself to the end of the street and rested at a deserted intersection. There was no one in sight, and the buildings across the road, once a row of little shops, were now piles of rubble with merchandise strewn everywhere. 

"God, help me," the raptor thought, and snapped on her communicator. 

"Sally? Is anyone there?" Her throat was so dry she could scarcely speak above a whisper. 

After a moment Sally's voice said, "Slasher! Is that you?" 

"Yes," Slasher rasped. "I need help." 

"Where are you?" 

The raptor glanced about her with one eye. "I think--I think I'm in Riverbase." 

"Are you all right?" 

"No. My wing is broken and I can barely move." 

There came an incoherent babble from the com's speaker, then Sonic said, "Slasher! Slasher! Are you on an intersection with a bunch of smashed buildings in front of you?" 

"Yes." 

"Is Tails with you?" 

"No ... I saw him before the earthquake, but nobody's here now ... Sonic, bring water." 

"You got it, Slash. I'll be right there. Bye!" 

Sally's voice returned. "Talk to me, Slasher. What happened to you?" 

Talking was work, and was making her throat hurt. Slasher had to try several times before she was able to speak. "Earthquake. Another raptor. Attacked. Hurt me. Hedgehog. Hit me on the head." She rested her head on the sun-warmed pavement and shut her eye. Her wing throbbed and sent jolts of pain through her whole body. 

"There was another raptor that attacked you?" came Sally's startled voice. "Did you know who it was?" 

"Stranger," Slasher murmured. She lifted her head and listened for Sonic. 

He appeared in a sparkle of light, the green chaos emerald in one hand. He was carrying a field canteen that contained about a gallon of water. He dashed up to her and knelt in front of her, unslinging the canteen from his shoulder. "Slash, what happened to you? What's wrong with your eye?" 

She didn't answer until he had helped her lift the canteen and drink a third of the contents. "Better," she sighed, licking her scaly lips. "I was attacked by another raptor and a black hedgehog. He knocked me out and I just woke up. I don't know where he went or where Tails is." 

Sonic fumbled with the canteen, suddenly jittery. "A black hedgehog? Um, was it ...?" 

"I'm not sure." Slasher struggled to stand, using the corner of the nearest building as a prop. She made it to her feet and stood panting, her broken wing trembling. "If it's Shadow, he's in disguise. I know I've seen him before." 

Sonic stood up, torn in three directions--Slasher needed help, but Tails was missing, and Twilight was so close ...! 

The velociraptor twitched, her head jerking backward. A second later she twitched again, clawed forepaws groping at nothing. "Sonic!" she choked. "Sonic, don't let--" Her voice was cut off in another spasm. 

Sonic grabbed her wrists, trying to hold her still. "Slash, is it a seizure?" She had done weird things while hurt before. She grabbed his arms with iron strength, even as her legs gave out and she sank to the ground. "Don't let me go," she gasped. "Don't let--" 

Then Sonic felt it, too. It was like standing on a carnival ride that pitched upside down without warning. The world wavered and swirled. It was like a Chaos Control, but Sonic's emerald lay on the ground with the canteen, a few feet away. "Slasher, let me go!" he cried, but the words were torn from his throat. They flew end over end through blank nothingness, tumbling, braced for impact. Slasher's grip slipped. 

Sonic landed with a thump on mossy stone. The world had returned and he could see and hear again. He sat up, rubbing his arms, and gasped. He was sitting on a rocky precipice poised on a ridge a thousand feet above a narrow, tree-filled valley. Mountains rose around him as far as he could see, peak upon peak of rocks and blue-green trees against a cloudless sky. 

He stood up, open-mouthed in shock. What in the world had happened? Where was he? He had never been here in his life! 

"Slasher, are you okay?" he said, looking around for her. "Slash?" The rock he was on was ten feet wide, and below it trees stood up from the mountainside. Thick silence blanketed the world. 

Slasher was not there. 

* * * 

Twilight swore and lowered his binoculars. Beside him, the velociraptor that had assaulted Slasher uncovered Tails' mouth. 

"You shouldn't say those words," said Tails. 

"Shut up," Twilight growled. "They're gone! The flux took them both!" He swore again. 

"Good!" said Tails, ears flattening in anger. "That way you couldn't kill Sonic or whatever you're going to do to him." 

The black hedgehog turned from the edge of the rooftop and glared at Tails. His black spines were streaked with blue, as if he had unsuccessfully tried to dye himself blue. He wore a wide gold plate around his neck called a torc, which made him look like an escapee from another time. Up close, Tails could see his face was a patchwork of scars, as if his face had been grafted together after an accident. His eyes had a milky film over them, as if his vision had been impaired, and the combination of his eyes and mangled face made his scowl all the more terrible. "You. Shut up. I'm only keeping you alive as a favor to a friend. The Beast has permission to remove your limbs if you annoy me." 

The dinosaur tightened its grip on the fox's shoulders and licked its chops. 

Twilight turned away and peered toward the ruined corner where Slasher and Sonic had been. A second later he lifted the binoculars again. "He dropped his emerald!" he muttered, and leaped from the roof at once. Tails watched him run through the wreckage, snatch up a small green object, and race back. "Bring the fox," he called to the raptor, who lifted Tails and jumped down to the pavement below. 

Tails watched as the black hedgehog pressed the emerald into his torc. There were seven dents in the torc, and the gem fit its slot as if made for it. "So it works," said Twilight, unbuckling the torc and holding it up to admire it from arm's length. "My research has proven correct. If only Sonic had not vanished!" He looked with fierce wistfulness at the spot where Sonic and Slasher had been. 

"He wouldn't tell you where the rest are," said Tails. 

Twilight lifted a hand to slap him, and Tails flinched, but Twilight thought better of it and put his torc back on. "I want him for reasons of my own," said the hedgehog. "I daresay you could tell me where they are located, if I asked." 

"Over my dead body," sneered Tails. 

"Or perhaps your dead Cyclone," replied Twilight. "What would you do if I smashed it, one spindash at a time?" 

The fox said nothing, and it was Twilight's turn to sneer. "Tough kid, aren't you? I'll save such persuasion for later. Beast, bring him. We need to be under cover by the next aftershock." 

The raptor called Beast lifted Tails again and sprang after its fleeing master.


	4. Aftershock

Evening fell across the earthquake-stricken Mobius, drawing a veil of darkness over the mountains where Sonic wandered, and a misty swamp where Slasher lay on a patch of damp earth as if dead. It drew over the Floating Island, making the forests grow larger and darker, and throwing the eastern side into shadow. 

It found Knuckles holed up in a secret library in Sandopolis, seated at a table with a single lamp burning, surrounded by stacks of parchments and scrolls. He had two notebooks open before him, and was referring to one as he translated a scroll into the other. He worked with steady patience, as if he had been at it for years. In reality he had spent the last four days working around his island, adjusting its hovering trajectory, and scuffling with the Chaotix. He had entered the hidden library a few hours before, sufficiently recovered from the frustration of training Sonic to try his hand at translation. 

He pushed his dreadlocks out of his face, laid down his pencil and read what he had written. Then he slid the parchment to one side and began translating another. Sally had contacted him and asked if the ancients had written about a flux of any kind. He glanced around the library, lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, on which were stacked old books, scrolls, parchments, and engraved tablets. The dry climate of Sandopolis had preserved them for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. There were many dialects that the echidna could no longer read, and so had to translate them one word at a time. 

Flux. "What kind of flux?" he wondered. The echidna clan had written about fluxes galore; organic fluxes, Master Emerald fluxes, time fluxes, lightning discharges in the sky ... the word was fairly common. He was digging further back into the past, looking for something that had been forgotten by later generations. But nagging doubts plagued him. How did this Twilight character know about such things? And how would any mortal correct the faulty orbit of the moons? 

Knuckles had been the only one Sonic ever told about Shadow's death, and the echidna was convinced that Shadow could not have lived through the horrific emerald unbonding. He doubted that this Twilight was Shadow, but how did Twilight know these things? It made no sense. 

Knuckles worked on several other manuscripts, then got up and rummaged around for something different. Not the tablets, he had deciphered those long ago. Maybe one of the old scrolls ... he opened the lid of a clay jar and withdrew one of the scrolls preserved inside. He carefully unrolled the yellowed, delicate paper, and peered at the faded characters scrawled on it. It looked mysterious enough. He carried it to his table and set to work. 

* * * 

Sonic spent an uncomfortable night curled up on the ground under a tree, dozing and waking suddenly at small sounds. He was relieved when the sun finally rose, although it would be hours before it climbed high enough to shine into the narrow rocky valley Sonic was in. 

A small stream ran through the valley floor, and Sonic drank from this, but he was miserably hungry. On top of that he was lost and confused. Why had he and Slasher been randomly warped across the planet? And where had Slasher gone? 

He ran up the steep mountainside, hoping to simply run back--wherever 'back' was--but the ground gave under his feet, and the trees grew too close together. Their branches reached out to snare him, and roots lifted to catch his feet. 

It took him several hours to reach the top of the ridge, but he made it at last and stood in the sun, his hands and knees soiled with dirt. He shaded his eyes and peered about. It was a clear day, and fading into the distance north, south and west was a vast mountain range, peaks and crests poking up like whipped meringue. To the east the land dropped into a wide valley, but it was at least a hundred miles off, and between it and Sonic stood rough mountains and narrow valleys. 

As Sonic surveyed this, discouraged and worried about his friends at home, his eyes fell on something on the hillside below that was not forest. It was a tall metal pole with a wire protruding from the top. An antenna? The trees blocked Sonic's view of what it was attached to. 

"Great, maybe they'll have a radio I can use," Sonic muttered, starting down the hillside. "Or at least tell me where I am." And where there was civilization, there would be roads, he thought, hopes rising. 

It took longer than he thought to scramble down the steep hillside, sliding through years of leaves, pine needles, and other cast-offs of nature. He arrived at a gentler slope with his legs and gloves full of burrs and twigs. He picked them out as he walked, looking about for the antenna. It was close by, and there were several smaller antennas poking up around it. He trotted toward it, keeping an eye out for a road. 

The antennas were mounted on the roof of a square grey building, like a cement cube that had been dropped on the hillside. It had no windows and one narrow steel door, locked. There was a tiny black sensor embedded in the wall beside the door, which Sonic waved at and spoke to, but it did nothing. Discouraged, he turned away. 

There were two faint wheel tracks winding away down the mountain. He loped along these, feeling lonelier than ever, and wondering how long it would take to get home. What if Twilight answered his letter? Would Sally try writing to Twilight herself? For some reason the thought chilled him. If Twilight had attacked Slasher ... (he tried to rationalize this as Shadow had never seen a velociraptor before and was defending himself) ... anyway, he didn't want him near Sally. 

Sonic turned a corner and heard a tiny, sharp sound that reminded him of something unpleasant. An instant later something jabbed into his arm like a lance. He glanced down at the orange dart sticking out of his skin, then looked up at the human standing in the trees, air-rifle trained on him. 

"I hope that's only tranqu ..." Sonic began, and collapsed to the ground, unconscious. 

* * * 

Zephyer was robotized from the neck downward. While this made her body bulky and heavy, it also lent extra strength to her hands and arms. She was kept busy in the Knothole camp, stamping down tent pegs with her metal feet, or jamming together poles that wouldn't join together. Being robotized was so often a disadvantage that it was pleasant to be needed for a change. 

The morning fixes applied, the echidna went searching for Sally, who had been withdrawn and silent all morning. Zephyer found her within the outskirts of the forest, sitting on a log with her head in her hands. The squirrel straightened up as Zephyer approached. "Hello, Zephyer." 

"Hi Sally," said the echidna. "Is there something wrong? Besides the obvious, I mean." She motioned a silver hand at the campground. 

"Yes. No. I don't know," Sally replied, running both hands through her hair and resting her forehead on them. "The communicator was on when Sonic reached Slasher. She said something about Tails and--and being attacked by a raptor and a black hedgehog. Then the com went dead, and I haven't been able to reach Slasher or Sonic since yesterday afternoon." 

Zephyer was silent a moment, digesting this. "Maybe the battery died." 

"I just replaced them." Sally looked up at her, hopelessly. "I'm afraid something's happened to them." She hesitated, then went on, "Today I received an email from Twilight. It was addressed to me." She unclipped Nicole from her boot, opened the screen and held it out to the echidna. Zephyer took it, eying Sally, and read the message on the screen. 

"Dear Sally, 

"This is to inform you that Sonic and Slasher will be indisposed for a long period. I warned Sonic about the chaos emeralds and he disregarded my advice. Beware the color red. The flux is approaching." 

"Twilight." 

"What is this guy, a sick joker?" said Zephyer, returning Nicole. "He makes it sound like he murdered them or something." 

Sally looked at her without speaking, and Zephyer realized she had voiced the squirrel's own thoughts. "Sally, I'm sorry." 

"It's okay," said Sally, shaking her head and rising to her feet. "All we can do now is wait." 

They walked toward camp, Zephyer's feet clumping through the grass, and Sally stepping so lightly she hardly left a footprint. "By the way, how's Knuckles doing?" asked Zephyer. 

Sally smiled at her, but the echidna avoided her gaze. "I just wondered how he was." 

"Right," said Sally. "You can't fool me, Zephyer Winstrom. I think he's fine. I sent him a question about this flux thing, and he said he'd try to look it up. That was yesterday." 

"I hope he finds something," Zephyer replied. "We might understand that creepy Twilight guy." 

"And Knuckles might come to the mainland to show us his findings." 

Zephyer blushed almost as red as her dreadlocks and turned her head so Sally wouldn't see. But Sally had seen, and grinned. "Good luck, Zephyer." 

* * * 

Tails sat in a corner of a dark, drafty room, arms, legs and tails bound in rope. He had gotten over his fear of his captors, and constantly said things to irk Twilight. The raptor called Beast was not allowed to hurt Tails, and both the hedgehog and the raptor took pains to treat him decently, and gave him plenty of food and water. The cruelest thing they did was tie him up and leave him locked in a tiny room for hours at a time. 

No, he was not afraid of them. What tormented him the most was boredom. In all the adventure books he had read, the hero managed to wriggle out of his bonds and escape his prison within fifteen minutes. The hero was never confined for hours or days, and forced to endure boredom. 

"What's the point?" he asked Twilight at noon, when the black hedgehog entered carrying two paper sacks. "Why don't you torture me or something?" 

"You're too valuable," Twilight replied, removing the contents of the bags. These were usually take-out meals, and today it was spicy Upper Northern chicken tenders, and Beast untied Tails' hands so he could feed himself. 

"We must keep you safe for a time. But today, after lunch, there's something I want you to do." 

"What, you think I'm going to help you?" said the fox, stretching his aching arms. The longer he took over lunch, the less time he would have to wait until dinner. 

"I need your mechanical expertise," replied Twilight. "Perhaps we could see about letting you out of your prison today too, hmm?" 

Tails thought about this as he ate. Anything was better than solitary confinement, and he dreaded it like a toothache. Mechanical expertise? Whatever they wanted him to do, maybe they would untie him completely, and he'd have a chance to escape. 

Tails lingered over his food, and Beast and Twilight moved in and out, one of them always keeping an eye on him. When he was finished, Twilight swooped down on him. "If your meal is over, I'd like your assistance." 

"Sure, just get me out of here," said Tails, and sighed with relief as the hedgehog untied his legs and tails. 

"Come," said Twilight, and led a limping Tails from the room. 

They were hiding out in a closed-down factory that still had all its machinery in it. Tails marvelled at it as his captors led him through it, picking a twisting path through the equipment. It looked like a food processing plant of some kind, and there was a lingering smell of old vegetables. Perhaps it had been closed when the earthquakes struck and not yet reopened. 

They rounded a corner, and Tails' eyes popped. One of the machines had been disassembled, and parts were strewn everywhere. In one corner was a neat, tidy area with several boxes of small parts and a set of power tools. 

Twilight picked up a roll of paper and handed it to Tails. "We need you to build this." 

Tails unrolled it and saw blueprints. At first he thought it was a television, then realized that it was more like some sort of tracking device. Intrigued, he examined each page. Twilight and Beast stood on either side of him, silent and watchful. 

"What is this?" Tails asked, faintly. 

Twilight and Beast eyed each other, then Twilight said, "It is a device for monitoring Chaos energy." 

"Something to do with this flux you're always going on about?" 

"Perhaps," said the black hedgehog, looking sidelong at the papers in Tails' hands. "If you are willing to build it, we will not return you to your confinement. Once you are finished, we will release you. Do you agree?" He held out one black gloved hand. Tails looked at the retractable claws that protruded a little just above the knuckles. A dangerous hand. 

But after careful thought, Tails shook the hand. "Deal. But you'd better let me go." 

Twilight gripped his hand and smiled a queer, twisted smile. "I always keep my word, Tails. Always." 

* * * 

"Get up." 

Slasher's head jerked up, and she strained to see with her good eye. Her injured eye was caked with dried fluid, and she could not open it. "Who's there?" she growled, sniffing. There was no smell of anyone, just the rotten odors of the swamp that steamed up all around. 

A cold hand touched her neck. The speaker was standing on her blind side. She pulled away and twisted around, trying to see. 

Then she saw and froze, lips writhing back in a snarl. 

Neither moved for a long moment. 

"Get up," he said again. "You are no use to anyone lying in the mud." 

The raptor slowly stood and turned so her good eye was toward him, and her teeth remained bared. "What are you doing here?" 

"I could ask you the same question," said the blue robot, coolly. He was three feet shorter than she, and was modeled after Sonic. An unpracticed eye might have underestimated his deadly speed and strength, and Slasher had done so once. But she had learned her lesson, and did not take her eye from Metal Sonic's face. 

"I was teleported here by accident," Slasher hissed. "I don't know where I am. You can't attack me for that." 

"No?" said Mecha. "You could be lying. Oh, your left wing is fractured." 

"Yes," said Slasher, as it spasmed. The pain was still there, but for the moment her alarm outweighed it. 

They faced each other for another moment. 

"You are in no condition to fight me," remarked Mecha presently. "All I have to do is push you off this hump of ground, and you would sink like a stone." 

"Ditto," said Slasher. "Want to try it?" 

"I have a better idea," said Mecha. "Consent to be my prisoner, and I will remove you from this place and give you suitable repairs." 

"Hah," said Slasher without mirth. "I've heard how you treat prisoners. I'll take my chances with quicksand." 

"Then die," said the robot, stepping away. "Perhaps we could have helped each other." 

Slasher let him take two more steps, then called, "Wait." 

He stopped and flashed his red eyes in her direction. 

"What kind of help do you need?" 

"You wish to bargain with me?" asked the robot, turning to face her. "I seek information on the coming Chaos Flux. What do you know?" 

"Patch me up and I'll tell you," said Slasher, sounding braver than she felt. 

There was a brief silence, broken by the trilling of insects. 

"Affirmative," said Mecha at last. "Follow me and do not try to attack me." 

"I won't," said Slasher, and followed in the robot's footsteps, her stiff, mud-caked legs protesting. She was hungry, thirsty, hurting, and had been promised help by an enemy. She knew that the Freedom Fighters had helped him before, but all the same she did not trust him, and tried to watch him with her one eye as she walked. 

After a while the green, swampy ground and mournful trees gave way to firmer ground, and the trees became healthier. Small birds chirped here and there. Metal Sonic walked after, often tossing Slasher a suspicious glance over his shoulder. He led her along a thin trail that climbed a hill overlooking the marsh, and a little later they rounded a bend and saw a brick structure like a tiny castle built on top of the hill. As they approached it, Slasher saw that the stone was engraved with snakes, eels and evil symbols. She stopped. "Mecha, where are we?" 

"The Forbidden Zone," said the robot without stopping. "This structure was long abandoned when I discovered it." 

Slasher hesitated another moment, then picked her way after the robot, a sense of foreboding growing on her. The Forbidden Zone was a region in central-west Mobius that had been the location in physical space where the Order Emeralds had linked to Mobius. When the emeralds were corrupted, their evil blasted that area, which had not recovered to the present day. Upon reflection, Slasher wondered why Metal Sonic had not been drawn there sooner. 

There was a single room in the cold brick building, stacked with drums of Mecha's favorite liquid fuel. A stone altar in the far end was now a table covered in rows of instruments Mecha had purloined from various inventors. A generator rumbled outside. It was an ideal hideout for a robot, but Slasher could not ignore the symbols and runes etched into the floor, ceiling and walls. She dared not imagine how this building had been used. 

Metal Sonic produced a small first aid kit from among the supplies in one corner and gave it to her. "Physician, heal thyself," he said. 

Slasher blinked at him, and rummaged around for ointment and cotton wool. "Help me," she said. "Then I'll tell you what I know about the flux."


	5. Flux combination

Knuckles flexed his arms and yawned. It was six o'clock already, and he had made little progress on his translations. The dialect was ancient, and he had to keep looking up symbols he didn't understand. His mind kept wandering, as well. He had set the six emeralds that Sonic had left behind in a row on the table, and was working by their light. The trouble was that the gems flickered once in a while, and it annoyed him enough to break his concentration. 

He rolled up the scroll in front of him and returned it to its jar. He was hungry, his eyes ached, and his brain felt like cold oatmeal. Yet he paused a moment and watched the chaos emeralds instead of leaving, trying to see which one was flickering. It was so slight that he could only see it with the tail of his eye. 

There. The dark blue had flickered. He picked it up with a triumphant grin. "I'll put you somewhere else while I'm working," he said to it. "That way I can work in peace." He put it in a leather bag that the gems were stored in, and dropped the others in with multiple clinks. As he picked up the red emerald, it flickered, too. "Two!" the echidna exclaimed. "That's why it was so annoying!" 

He moved to drop the jewel in with its fellows, but his hand wavered, and instead he set it down again and pulled out the dark blue. One flickered, then the other. How strange. He had never known them to flicker before. 

He slung the leather bag over one shoulder, picked up the red and blue emeralds in either hand, and walked out of the library. 

* * * 

Sonic came to with the feeling that he had been sitting in the same position for a long time. 

He blinked to clear his blurry vision and lifted his head. He was sitting in a padded chair with his hands chained to the arms. The room he was in was small and stacked with boxes. There was an empty chair facing his, and aside from a video camera on the wall, he was alone. His arm itched where the tranquilizer had struck him, but he could not move a hand to scratch it. 

Minutes passed and nothing happened. The hedgehog's head was clearing, and he had time to worry about where he was and what his captors wanted with him. He gazed at the video camera's blank eye. "I'm awake," he said to it. "Hello? Is anybody there?" When nothing happened, he threw his head back and began to shred the chair's upholstery with his spines. That ought to get somebody's attention. 

It worked, for a moment later the door opened and three humans walked in. Two were carrying tranquilizer guns, and the third carried an electrical stunner in one hand. Sonic stared at him. He had never seen a human with blue hair before--maybe it was dyed. 

"Hello," said the man with blue hair. "I am Micare. Are you willing to stop shredding my chair, and answer a few questions?" 

"Sure," said Sonic, as Micare sat down in the opposite chair, and the guards stood on either side of him. "Why am I tied up, and why did you shoot me?" 

"Security," replied Micare, fondling his stunner. "All Mobians are considered armed and extremely dangerous so close to the Forbidden Zone." 

Sonic blanched. "We are?" 

"Yes," said Micare, eyeing him. "What are you doing here?" 

"I donno," said Sonic. "A friend and I went through a weird teleport yesterday, but we got separated. I didn't know where I was. Could you let me call home?" 

"Maybe," said Micare. "You say you're lost, yet you were travelling east, toward the Zone. Why?" 

"I had to pick some direction to travel in," said Sonic defensively. "Would you have done so good if you were warped to the middle of nowhere?" 

"That is not the issue," said the man, eyes narrowing. "Where are you from?" 

"The Mobitropolis valley. I'm with the Knothole Freedom Fighters, if that means anything to you." 

"Yes, Sonic, it does," said Micare. When Sonic looked surprised, he continued, "Oh yes, we know who you are. The Chaos fields are stronger here than elsewhere on the planet, and Chaos never repeats itself. Finding you here is logical." 

"Okay, sure, that makes sense," said Sonic sarcastically. "How long have you been expecting me?" 

"Not long," said Micare. "Only since the eclipse." 

Sonic opened his mouth, then shut it again. 

Micare went on, "Do you know anything about the Chaos Emeralds?" 

"Yeah," said Sonic, rolling his eyes. "I've been training to use them. I've become Super and Hyper so much it's not funny." 

Sonic had never seen someone's eyes bug out the way Micare's did. A second later Micare whispered to one of the guards, who left the room at once. 

"What did I say?" said Sonic, amused. "Never met a Chaos Emerald wielder before?" 

"How far has your training progressed?" asked Micare, leaning forward and peering at Sonic as if he had never seen anything so interesting before. When Sonic looked puzzled, he added, "What can you do?" 

"Relocate, Timestop, and See, a little. But then the eclipse came and we stopped." 

Micare waved his hand, and the remaining guard stepped forward and unlocked Sonic's bindings. "It may be enough," Micare muttered as he stood up. Sonic slid out of the shredded chair, and Micare stooped and shook his hand. "Pleased to have you with us, Sonic. Come with me." 

The guard led them through the door. Sonic followed, and found himself in a room slightly larger than the one he had left. A table was set up along one wall with four glowing computer monitors on it, and underneath it sat four nondescript desktop computers among a snarl of cables. It looked grimy, souped-up and nerdy. 

The first guard was seated before the end computer, and the second guard sat down at a console nearby. They leaned their weapons against the wall and peered into their screens. Sonic watched as Micare bent over another screen and watched. There was silence a moment, then Micare switched seats with one of the guards and began typing. 

The guard looked at Sonic and smiled. "I'm Jordan," he said, "and that's Andrew. We're really just programmers." 

Sonic looked them up and down. Come to think of it, they were all shorter and punier than most human guards he had seen. 

"Sorry I shot you," Jordan went on, speaking with a slight lisp. "Orders." 

"But look who you shot, man!" exclaimed Andrew, looking up from behind a shaggy mat of brown hair. "Only, like, Sonic the Dude himself!" He leaned back in his chair and held out a hand to Sonic, who shook it. "Dude, I'm like one of your fans, man." 

"Cool," said Sonic, not knowing whether to feel flattered or repulsed. "I, uh, think the pleasure's all mine. What are you doing?" 

"Oh, this is our Chaos surveillance program," said Jordan. "You saw our scanning hardware up on the ridge, with all the antennas." 

"Chaos is, like, really funky out here," said Andrew, bending over his keyboard again. "So we're like studying it, y'know?" 

There was silence a moment. Sonic watched the three technicians work, and folded his arms. They weren't helping him get home, and he was hungry. "So, what do you want me to do?" he asked after a moment. 

Micare swivelled around in his chair. "Sorry about that, we had to get the program running. What we've done is synthesize a Chaos Emerald by duplicating its wavelength patterns by computer." 

"Which color?" Sonic asked, suddenly feeling sick. Tails had made a synthetic emerald, too, which had been the cause of Shadow's death (or near-death, as he told himself). 

"Generic," replied Micare. "We had to work from research, as we couldn't locate a real emerald to study. But it should work." He slid his chair back and motioned for Sonic to stand in front of one of the screens. "We need you to use the computers like you would an emerald and Chaos See. The trick is, this unit over here is set as an output. All we need is for you to catalyze it." 

The hedgehog backed away, holding up his hands. "No way. Forget it. I saw too many horrible things last time, and it almost killed me breaking out of it." 

"All we have to do is break your eye contact," replied Micare. "Do you think you could do it for us? Right now?" 

Sonic hesitated, frowning. 

"It'll only take, like, ten minutes," said Andrew. "And it'd help a ton." 

"Oh, all right," Sonic grumbled, stepping up to the computer screen. "But you guys had better feed me afterwards. I'm starved." 

He peered into the screen. It had a colored fractal pattern on it that he guessed was a model of the energy inside a Chaos Emerald. He focused. 

For several minutes there was no sound but the humming of the computers, and the technicians watched him eagerly. Sonic narrowed his eyes. It was just a big Chaos Emerald, he told himself. It has the same layers. It's probably the green emerald ... He concentrated. 

The fractal pattern began to change as the chaotic power in the room shifted its currents. The pattern moved faster and faster as Sonic peered deeper into it, and Micare, Andrew and Jordan watched in barely contained excitement. 

Just as before, Sonic felt himself breach a barrier, and he was Seeing. Sweat broke out on his forehead as images flashed through his mind--chaotic information corrected and identified by his brain. As before, they were vivid glimpses of evil, waste and destruction, but this time they were more intense, owing to their proximity to the Forbidden Zone. 

He cried out as a particular set of images swirled by. "No! No! Make it stop! Make it stop!" 

"But it's only been forty-five seconds!" Micare exclaimed from behind him. 

"Stop it!" Sonic gasped, trying to wrench his eyes away. He could turn his body, but his head was held motionless by the chaos power. Terrified, he wailed, "Stop!" and hurled himself away. He struck the chair behind him and landed on his knees, breathless and half sobbing. Hands groped at him and lifted him to his feet, and voices asked if he was all right, but he couldn't answer. He was shaking like a leaf. They helped him sit down, and a moment later a grubby blanket was draped around him. He huddled there, in shock and half blind. 

It was thirty minutes before he came to himself and was able to understand his surroundings. Three voices were talking in an undertone. 

"... this shape here, that could be Mount Pymore ..." 

"Is that anyone we know?" 

"Oh my gosh!" 

"That is disgusting!" 

"This is like a demented holovideo ..." 

"What the heck is that?" 

"Look, there's the human colonies." 

Sonic lifted his head. The techs were huddled around the observation screen, playing back his fifty seconds of recorded madness. He wondered how they could be so heartless, and put it down to the cold-bloodedness of all humans. At once he was angry, and it made him stronger. "Hey," he said. "What's the big idea? You guys almost killed me!" 

The three looked up, and Micare walked up to him. "I'm sorry, Sonic, we shouldn't have made you do that. But the results are fascinating! Would you like to see?" 

Sonic muttered something, and Micare dragged his chair closer to the monitor. Sonic looked at the images scrolling by in slow motion. Captured this way, they were no longer frightening, and actually looked grainy and half-focused. 

"Oh!" The word escaped him involuntarily, and he stared, open-mouthed. "Run it back!" 

"What, to here?" asked Jordan, reversing the recording. 

"There! Stop!" said Sonic. It was a snapshot of Slasher with Metal Sonic in a swamp. The next image was of a fanged demon attacking Knothole, flames leaping around it. No, that was no demon. He recognized its face. Then he saw a black hedgehog talking to Tails, who was bending over a machine with a drill in hand. He saw Velocity, a blue chao, standing at a window and wistfully peering at the street outside. 

Sonic turned away. It was nearly as painful second hand as it had been the first time. 

"Do you know what those things are?" Micare asked. 

"Yes," Sonic breathed. "They're things from my life." 

"The theory is correct!" said Micare, glowing. "Chaos See is customized according to what the viewer considers important, chaotic though it is!" He pulled out a notebook and scribbled something in it. 

Sonic shakily stood up and dropped the blanket. "I gotta get home. If that stuff hasn't happened yet, then it will." 

"Sorry," said Micare with a small smile. "We're in a Chaos-shielded bunker thirty feet underground. The locks won't open until tomorrow because of our experiments. You're stuck here." 

When Sonic's jaw jutted out in rage, Micare added, "Want something to eat?" 

* * * 

"Are you Shadow?" Tails asked. 

The fox was sitting on the cold concrete floor of the factory, a baseball-sized tangle of circuitry and computer chips resting on a stool in front of him. He blew on the cooling sautered shell that would fit around it, and looked at the black hedgehog sitting across from him. 

Twilight had been watching him ever since he started working, and Beast lay beside him, its head lifted in a serpentine curl. 

Now Tails asked his question, and waited for an answer. There was a long silence as Twilight gazed at him. 

"Shadow," said Twilight, rolling the syllables over his tongue. "Shadow. I haven't heard that name in a long time." 

"Well, are you?" Tails persisted. "And if you are, how did you survive?" 

"Your friend Sonic would be the one to ask about that," said Twilight, scowling and fingering his torc. "There are gaps in my memory there. I was hideously burned and sustained a shocking concussion. I was so disfigured I adopted the nickname Twilight." 

Tails eyed the scars on the hedgehog's face and eyelids. "It must have hurt." 

"It did." Twilight stroked Beast's head, and it blinked its yellow eyes. "Beast was my only companion during that time. Deserted by all living things, I studied ancient arts of healing ... and so I seek the Chaos Emeralds. My vision and hearing were damaged, you see." 

"The Chaos Emeralds are better at making people invincible, not healing them," said Tails. "Sounds like you want them for sorcery or something." 

"If you mean by sorcery that I intend to study them and learn their ways, you are right," replied Twilight. "I am not wicked, Tails. I do not seek world domination or war. I seek to right the wrongs done to the world, and I mean to see it protected from the flux." 

"What is that flux-thing?" Tails asked, lightly touching the cooling sauter and picking up the casing. "It's all you talk about." 

"The flux is a discharge of energy," said Twilight. "Even I don't know much about it. It has only happened once, thousands of years ago. Then as now, the moons eclipsed, and Mobius stood on the brink of self-annihilation." He sank into thought. 

Tails waited for him to go on. When Twilight remained silent, Tails prompted, "And?" 

"And?" repeated the hedgehog, looking up. "The flux was directed by a young emerald user who did not understand what he was doing. But he had no time to prepare, or he may have better performed his task." 

Something passed over the building in a rush of wind, darkening the windows and rattling the floor and machinery. The three leaped to their feet, but it had passed and the windows were brightening again. "Good grief, what was that?" Tails gasped. 

Twilight cocked his head from side to side, a grim smile on his face. "That, my friend," he purred, "was the second preliminary flux." 

* * * 

As Knuckles walked through the ruins of Sandopolis, watching the sun set below the rim of the Floating Island, he carried a Chaos Emerald in either hand: indigo and red. The rest of the gems were in a bag slung over his shoulder. 

He felt preoccupied, as if part of his mind had gone on a vacation and had not yet returned. He shook his head to clear it. "Wake up," he told himself. "You've been working hard, and all you need is some food." He thought of taking his notes down to Knothole and showing Sally--she would be interested--and maybe visiting Zephyer. He smiled to himself, glad that the Chaotix weren't around. It wasn't enough that he carried pictures of her; he had to see her all the time, too. Did it mean he was in love? he wondered nervously. No, no, he couldn't be in love with her. He just liked the girl. Was that so bad? 

Suddenly he was aware that the red emerald's heat was scorching through his glove. "Ow!" he exclaimed, but instead of letting go of the gem, he dropped the bag of other emeralds instead. His hand wouldn't release the gem, and he found he didn't want to release it. Maybe it was too far away from the other emeralds. He pressed the blue emerald up against the red one. 

Double flux! 

Knuckles was blasted skyward, spinning, stunned, but still clutching the emeralds. He could smell burning fur and hear himself screaming, and all he could see was a blur. He was tumbling crazily, flailing in midair-- 

And then he was in control. The echidna righted himself and sank back to the ground as lightly as a feather. His body glowed a bright, poisonous green, lightning crackled over his body, and wind roared away from him in all directions. As he touched down, his forcefield blasted the ground, torching the sand and igniting the nearby desert scrub. 

He floated on one foot, smiling. He still held the red and blue emeralds in either hand, now burning as brightly as he was. He did not notice that the sky had darkened above him, or that a ripple of darkness was spreading outward across the world from where he stood. All that he knew was that this Knuckles person had been a goody-goody for far too long, and it was time to show those Freedom Fighters who was boss. 

He took one step and shot across the island like a bullet, grass and trees igniting in his path, surrounded by a whirlwind of searing heat. 

* * * 

Zephyer was sitting in her tent, reading a book, when the sky darkened as if a switch had been flipped. The echidna looked up and crawled out of her tent. Darkness lay over the camp like a blanket, and people were looking around, wondering what had happened to the sunset. 

Shouts drew her attention to the east. Flames were leaping up in the grass at the far end of the plain, as if someone had lit a bonfire. But it was sweeping toward them, other fires springing up around it. 

Then they saw the glowing green figure in the heart of the flame, flying like Super Sonic, kindling everything to flames as he came. "What is that?" Zephyer gasped as the first gust of hot wind struck the camp. 

It turned aside and circled the camp, lighting fire in a ring around it to cut off escape. People cried out in dismay, not fully comprehending their danger. 

Sally ran up to Zephyer as the fiery green figure circled around again. "Zephyer! Did you see who that is?" 

"No," said the echidna, watching the red flames lick up in the outskirts of the Great Forest. 

"It's Knuckles!" Sally exclaimed. "Something's happened to him!" 

"No way, that's not Knuckles," said Zephyer as the creature flashed by. But as she spoke his name, he halted and whirled about, a foot above the ground, the earth melting beneath him. They were fifty feet apart, but Zephyer saw with horror that it was an echidna without pupils, and his eyes were pools of burning red. His dreadlocks blew about him like the writhing snakes of a gorgon, and his teeth were bared. 

"That's not Knuckles," Zephyer repeated. "Not anymore." 

The green monster flew off again, then cut straight across the camp. Fire leaped up amid the tents, and people scrambled to get out of the way. Knuckles flew off, and Zephyer saw that he meant to cross the camp again at right angles. She bolted toward the point where he would turn, her heart thundering under her metal. Her robotized body might withstand the heat for a moment or two, but if she got too close she would cook inside her metal casing. She had no plan, only the idea that she could stop him. 

They met near the fire ring. Zephyer flung up both hands and yelled, "Stop!" 

The green echidna glided to a stop ten feet away and floated, smiling an insane smile. Zephyer squinted against the blast of heat coming off him, and saw that fire was being fanned across the grass toward her. 

"Knuckles, stop this!" she yelled above the roar of fire, wind and lightning combined. "What have you done?" 

He didn't answer, but his smile changed to a sneer. The instant before he charged, Zephyer glimpsed the fiery emeralds in his fists. 

Sally found her a few minutes later, dragging herself out of Knuckles' fire-path. "Zephyer! Are you all right?" 

"Fine, don't touch me," the echidna gasped, stumbling to her feet. Her robotized body was blackened and burning hot, and Zephyer's long dreadlocks were scorched. "Sally, he's got two emeralds. That's what's happened to him. He's out of his mind!" She was half in tears. 

The squirrel turned and stared after Knuckles, who was circling the camp again like a demonic whirlwind. "How do you stop Chaos Emeralds?" 

"I don't know," whispered Zephyer, her metal ticking as it cooled. "He's going to kill us." 

Suddenly Sally turned to the echidna, blue eyes bright. "I know! They did it on the ARK! The Chaos Emeralds can be neutralized by the Master Emerald!" 

"Where's Sonic when you need him?" groaned Zephyer, not listening. 

"Zephyer!" Sally barked. "Listen! The Master Emerald can shut down the Chaos Emeralds!" 

"So what can I do?" said Zephyer. 

"Get to the Floating Island and do something," said Sally, turning away. "I've got to get everyone away from here. Good luck, Zephyer!" 

Zephyer was left alone in the fire-washed night, dazed and confused. "Think, girl!" she told herself. "You have to get to the Floating Island. And the way to do that is to get to the teleporter!" The teleporter was back in the woods, where it had been left near Knothole proper. 

Shielding her face with her robot arms, Zephyer leaped through the burning inferno lit by her attacker and ran through the woods, half blind in the darkness, arms out to ward off branches and tree trunks. Where was the teleporter? She didn't think she could find it in the dark. Cool night air touched her face and cooled her metal body. She gulped it down in lungfuls and kept running. 

She stumbled into Knothole and looked around, holding her side where a stitch was developing. It was so dark she couldn't see much, but she guessed where the teleporter was and hurried off to find it. Behind her, the black sky was lit with an orange glow, and there were crashes and cries and the roar of fire echoing through the trees. Knuckles made no sound himself, and it frightened her. One could not predict the actions of a madman, particularly not a madman driven by the red Chaos Emerald. 

Her feet clanked against something solid, and she stumbled over the teleporter. She groped over the smooth lens for the activation switch, turned it and stepped onto the lens. As it lit up, she thought she saw an orange glow approaching from between the trees. "C'mon, c'mon," she said, clenching her fists. She would not survive another encounter with him. 

The teleporter bathed her in blue light, and a second later she was beaming down in the darkness on the Floating Island. Where was she? She stood on the receiver plate, straining her eyes to see. It was darker than night, for no stars shone in the sky. She had been to Hidden Palace only once in her life, and had no idea how to get there. 

On impulse she reached down and turned the location knob one notch. Now it would send her to the next teleporter in the network. She activated it and was warped to the next one. Still too dark, still the chirping of crickets. She repeated the procedure, praying that she was not wasting too much time. The next one was indoors somewhere, but it was not the cave she wanted. One more click of the knob, and she teleported into a tall cave with an opening in the top. She jumped off the receiver plate and ran for the soft colored glow coming from the next room. 

Hidden Palace was lit by the Master Emerald in its bed of seed crystals, and the seven Super Emeralds, set on pedestals in a circle around it. It was cool, quiet, and soothing to Zephyer's tortured nerves. But as she started toward the Master Emerald, she heard the teleporter turn on behind her, and the rush of fiery wind as Someone entered the emerald chamber. 

Oh no. 

She arrived at the Master Emerald, gasping for breath, and peered over it as the insane green Knuckles swept into the room without touching the floor. She looked down at the vast surface of the Master Emerald, and at the soft light in its crystal depths. The power emeralds fried electronics like a lightning bolt, but she had no choice. She slapped her robot hands down on the emerald and screamed, "Stop Knuckles!" 

The Master Emerald's glow brightened tenfold, and Zephyer fell to the floor where she lay panting, arms shielding her face. Knuckles leaped across the room like a tiger, fists foremost, ready to rend her limb from limb, for even in his madness, he still had the instinct to protect the Master Emerald. But as the ruling gem blazed with light, the two chaos emeralds in the echidna's fists dimmed as their power was switched off. 

Knuckles landed on his feet and dropped to all fours as his green glow faded. The red light left his eyes. He was once more a mortal echidna, and sat on the floor, disoriented and nauseous. The sky outside returned to its normal shade of summer twilight, and the dark cloud vanished like smoke. 

He sat up and looked at the emeralds in his hands. He let them plink to the floor and stripped off his left glove. The hand that had held the red gem was shiny and burned. It was painless, but he knew that stage wouldn't last long. Wait a minute. Things he had done were trickling back into his head, along with frenzied, violent thoughts, and his own aggression, magnified a thousand times. Had Zephyer really tried to stop him? Hesitantly, he said aloud, "Zephyer?" 

He heard her move and clank against the floor. Unsteadily Knuckles stood up and had to grab the Master Emerald pedestal for support. He shakily moved around it and saw Zephyer crouched, as if trying to hide. She saw him and backed away, staring at him with such raw terror that he was startled. "Stay away," she breathed. 

"Zeff," he said, "It's me. It's over, I'm myself again." 

Zephyer stopped, but continued to watch him. She was trembling. "You set fire to the whole camp. The Great Forest is on fire. Then you tried to kill me twice. It gives me reason to feel nervous, don't you think?" Her voice cracked and she began to laugh, a hysterical laugh that was not quite her own. 

"Zephyer," said Knuckles, wincing. "Please stop." 

"I asked you to stop, too," she giggled, "but you didn't!" She sank to the floor and her laughter turned to sobs. 

Knuckles had never seen anyone have hysterics before, but he guessed this was what they were. He limped to her side and knelt beside her. "It's okay, Zeff. It's okay." 

She turned away from him, put her head in her hands and drew deep breaths. "I'm fine," she whispered. "I'm calm. Go help Sally. The Knothole camp is burning down." 

Knuckles refused to leave her until she was quite calm, and the catch in her breathing had faded. "I'm going back," he told her. "The Chaos Emeralds are over there on the floor, and don't go near the red one." 

"I touched the Master Emerald to save you," she replied. Once her fright and hysterics had worm off, she was sinking into a foul mood. "I'm never touching one of those emeralds again." 

Knuckles paused halfway to the teleporter and turned back. "Zephyer ..." 

"What?" She looked up peevishly from her seat on the floor. 

"No one but me is supposed to be able to command the Master Emerald." 

"I'm an echidna too, aren't I?" Zephyer snapped. "How much do you know about other echidnas? Nothing, that's what. Get going before I start getting mad." 

Knuckles went.


	6. Storm

In the Forbidden Zone, the dark cloud produced by Knuckles' transformation lingered on. But instead of dissipating, it swirled and rolled and became a murderous thunderstorm that stabbed the barren landscape with lightning. 

Slasher stood looking out the door of the little building until Metal Sonic tapped her on the tail and requested that she return inside. 

"These storms are frequent and hazardous," explained the robot as the velociraptor nosed the door shut. "They are a local phenomenon, and it is unwise to linger outdoors." 

"I've never seen a storm like this before," replied Slasher, stepping to the one window and peering out. "Look at the clouds. They're moving so fast ..." She stood entranced, watching. Her left wing was set in a splint and bound against her side. Her eye had recovered once the robot helped her clean it. 

Metal Sonic stood and stared at her, but his sensors were focused on the electrical levels around them. If their shelter was struck by lightning, the charge in the air could harm his equipment. 

There came a bright flash and a peal of thunder that shook the building to its foundations. Slasher backed away from the window, curving her tail so as not to strike the wall. "Mecha," she said in a low voice, "there's things in those clouds." 

"Negative," replied the robot. "Sensors detect no lifeforms within five hundred meters." 

"But I saw them," said Slasher, crouching down. "Monsters. What would you call them? Chaotic convolutions of aerial energy?" 

"Precisely," said Metal Sonic. "I would also call them the byproduct of an organic imagination." 

Another rumble of thunder, followed by a crack like a gunshot. The robot and dinosaur sat motionless, listening to the storm break around them. Wind tossed the trees outside, tearing loose leaves and twigs and flinging them at the walls. As it went on, it seemed to Slasher that she heard claws scratching at stone. She cowered lower, her wings clasped tightly to her body. It had been some time since she had been so afraid. She wanted to go home, and get out of this cursed land with its blight of evil. 

Then it began to rain, and the storm's rage abated. It ceased to be a mass of angry chaos energy and became a normal thunderstorm. Slasher relaxed and opened the door again, and sniffed the clean rain- scent. Something eased within her--the presence of evil had been withdrawn for now. But she still wanted to go home. 

It was night now, and the world outside was cloaked in rainy darkness. Part of Slasher wanted to slip out and hunt for small, warm-blooded things that were venturing out after the storm. But Metal Sonic had informed her that he would put several lasers in her back if she tried to escape. With a sigh the dinosaur stepped back into the cold stone room. "How long are you going to keep me here?" 

"Until I receive word back from my contacts," droned the robot. His red eyes focused on her. "I still desire information on the approaching Chaos Flux. I require more data than the sketchy information you provided, although news of a black hedgehog is fascinating." 

"Do you think it's Shadow?" Slasher asked, laying down on the floor and curling her limbs under her. 

Metal Sonic turned away and toyed with the instruments on his stone table. "Shadow," he purred. "I had not thought of him. Possibly. But there are other black hedgehogs in this world." He was silent a moment, then added, "Negative. Shadow is dead. Even had he survived his confrontation with the Biolizard, he could not have recovered in so short a time." 

Slasher rested her hand on her forepaws, dog-like. Once in a while Mecha's mood changed and he would talk to her at length. Then his mood or programming would shift and he would become silent and unresponsive. At the moment he was feeling chatty, so she figured she ought to keep him talking. "How do you know so much about Shadow?" 

"Doctor Robotnik," replied Mecha. "He was there and informed me afterward." His tone condemned her for asking such a foolish question. When she said nothing, he went on, "Shadow was powerful, yes, but he had the Hedgehog against him. It is no wonder he ceased to function." 

"Sonic didn't kill him," said Slasher. "It was an accident." 

"Accident or no, it would not have happened had he not been there," said Mecha, turning and focusing his red eyes on her. "It is a pity I never met him, myself. I would know for certain who Shadow was and what his body was composed of. There was rumor that he was inorganic, like Mecha Bot Five." 

"He was organic," Slasher replied, half-closing her eyes. "Sonic was certain of it. And Shadow had a chao who was fanatically loyal to him. Chao don't bond with robots like that." 

"Point conceded," said Mecha, after a moment's consideration. "These chao creatures have uncanny powers of observation. I have studied them and they always detected my identity within ten minutes." 

Slasher drew back her lips in a smile. "Good for them." 

There was a moment of silence. 

"Shadow had a chao?" Mecha inquired. "What became of it?" 

"Nobody knows," said Slasher. She yawned. "He flew off and we never saw him again. He hasn't been returned to the chao gardens. We think he's dead, too." 

"Pity," said the robot quietly. "He may have been useful." 

* * * 

Sonic explored the underground bunker while his three human captors worked on their computer program. He didn't find much. The room where he had been interrogated was stacked with boxes of food supplies, and several of computer equipment. A door opened off that into an even smaller room with a gas stove, and a narrow staircase leading upwards. The door at the top was locked. 

They had fed him dehydrated something or other that was both flavorless and colorless. While sustaining, it had not been Sonic's idea of a meal, so he helped himself to the boxes of food. He was thinking of chilidogs, but the closest ingredients he found were strips of jerky, cans of chili beans, and crackers. Chilidogs were out of the question, then, but maybe he could make some tolerable chili. 

Twenty minutes later, Micare, Jordan and Andrew piled into the 'kitchen', sniffing the air. "What's that smell? Are you burning something?" demanded Micare, then spotted the pot on the stove. The blue-haired human helped himself to a spoonful and his eyes widened. "Hey guys, this Mobian can cook!" 

"You should see me on a rail," said Sonic, as the other two grabbed spoons and dipped into the pot. "Hey, it's not ready yet!" 

"That's the best stuff I've had in ages," said Jordan. "And I'm our cook." 

"I vote we elect Sonic the new cook," said Micare. "Call me when that stuff's ready!" He ducked back into the computer room. 

Andrew and Jordan were not interested in work when there was hot food at hand. They lolled about or sat on the steps, waiting for the chili to boil. "Micare would go in there and work," lisped Jordan with a smirk. "That program is his baby." 

"Like totally," replied Andrew, leaning against the wall and crossing his legs. "He's got more degrees than a thermometer. The guy like loves computers." 

"Why are you guys studying Chaos Fields, anyway?" said Sonic, looking at the humans three feet above him. 

"GUN needed to know about them," said Jordan. "They're the biggest remaining military force the human colonies have anymore, and they could only afford a team of three." 

"I, like, got snapped up three weeks after I graduated Starlight University," added Andrew. "We're not even soldiers." 

"I had some combat training, so I know which end of a weapon to point at someone," said Jordan, grinning. "Micare was working on his Master's when they shipped him out here." 

"What's that mean?" asked Sonic, who was unfamiliar with the inner workings of human education. 

"That means he's a certified nerd," replied Jordan. "Is that stuff ready yet?" 

Sonic and his amiable captors were spooning the steaming red chili into plastic bowls when Micare yelled from the computer room, "You guys! Come quick, you gotta see this!" 

The three rushed in and found Micare standing before one of the screens, which displayed a line chart. Even from a distance, Sonic could see that the line had just spiked off the top of the screen. Andrew and Jordan exclaimed and rushed up, careful not to spill their chili. "Good Nights, that's more than three thousand gims!" Jordan said. "And it was barely an hour ago!" 

"Hold on, I'm going to call in," said Micare, bolting out of the room. "Something really big just happened!" 

Sonic stood against the wall to avoid being trampled, staring at the screen. An hour ago. When they had made him See, he had seen Knuckles absorb obscene amounts of power and go out of his head. He hadn't known when it would happen. Could Knuckles have caused that energy spike? Sonic was somehow certain that he could. He wondered bitterly if Twilight had sent him an enigmatic warning about that, too. 

* * * 

At night, Tails was escorted back to the room where he had been held prisoner, and locked inside until morning. He slept on the grimy floor, curled into a ball with his tails covering his body like a blanket. But this night, the young fox was shaken from the black gust of darkness that had swept over, and couldn't find a comfortable spot on the cement. 

He sat beside the door, chin on his knees, suffering from fear and homesickness. Twilight was creeping him out more and more, and Tails missed Sonic and Sally and the gang back at home. Why, oh why had he ventured down to Riverbase that day? He still hadn't got the ruined Cyclone part replaced, which meant that the little craft was stuck in Walker form. It was parked in a corner of the factory under a tarp, awaiting him. But aside from a preliminary glance, Twilight never let Tails go near it. 

He was too old to cry, he told himself. And if you do cry, those two will hear you and laugh at you. But these thoughts could not stop the growing hot lump in his throat. He wanted to go home. More than anything he wanted to go home. His ears flattened and he buried his head in his arms, his silent despair overwhelming him. 

Ten minutes later he was curled up on the floor, worn out with tears and wanting only to fall asleep. He was drifting off when he heard footsteps outside his door. His ears twitched a little. Twilight and Beast were passing by, and Twilight was saying softly, "... color of the last one. It appears white is next ..." He passed out of earshot. 

Perhaps it was his semi-conscious state that made Tails' mind so clear. Suddenly he understood the bizarre occurrences as clearly as Twilight did, and sat up, eyes wide. 

It was not one flux. It was seven. 

Suddenly Tails was desperate to get home, but for a new reason. He vowed that somehow, he would get a message through to the Freedom Fighters.


	7. Fifth flux

Dawn found the Knothole camp a dismal, smouldering place. White smoke rose in streamers from tents and burned grass, and the fire still burned in the Great Forest, sending up clouds of gray. Villagers moved about wearily, soot-smudged and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep. Occasionally a band of exhausted Freedom Fighters staggered out of the woods, and a group of villagers would stride off to take their places among the firefighting lines in the forest. 

Knuckles fought the fires the hardest, driven by furious guilt at having started them. He had arrived at nine o'clock the previous night and was still at it, smudged, dirty, and seething. He started backfires and helped drive the largest of the infernos into the Great River. Then he ran and glided here and there, fighting the scattered fires that remained. It only made him angrier when he saw his friends and acquaintances eyeing him with apprehension, as if they expected him to go on another rampage. He was furious with himself, with the fires, and most of all with the Chaos Emeralds. 

Late that afternoon he returned to the camp and hunted down Sally. The squirrel was in a hastily-erected shelter, helping administer bandages and liniment to burns, scrapes, and various other minor injuries. When he spoke her name she whirled around, arms up as if to ward off an attacker. "Don't do that," he said, lifting his hands to show he was harmless. "It's me, not a Chaos fiend." 

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Sally, straightening up and looking sheepish. "It's just that ..." she trailed off, then began again. "What do you need?" 

Knuckles pulled off his left glove and showed her his hand, which by now was one massive blister. "The red emerald is never kind to its user," he said bitterly, as Sally poured lotion into his palm. Sally said nothing, but Knuckles caught her peering at him, as if she expected to see his eyes flash red. 

As he rubbed the lotion into his painful burn, wincing, Sally asked, "How did you decharge?" 

"Zephyer," said the red echidna. "She turned the Master Emerald on me." 

"It's a good thing she did," murmured Sally. 

"Yeah it is," said Knuckles, pulling his glove back on and grinding his teeth as the fabric touched his tender skin. "Ironic, isn't it? My own emerald had to stop me." 

He strode out of the tent into a thick fog. Surprised, he stopped short and peered around. He could see the sun overhead, a pale white disk, and the light from campfires here and there, but apart from them the world was as white as milk. "What is this, smoke?" he muttered, sniffing. No, it didn't smell like smoke. It smelled damp, like fog off the river in the early morning. 

Knuckles moved forward, arms out to keep from knocking into something. Where had a fog come from? Was it something he had caused with his transformation? Then he stopped and stood staring. One of the villagers, a raccoon, was blundering by a few feet away. But as it moved, it turned from a raccoon to a frog to a mink to a heron to a raccoon. Knuckles was astounded, and wondered if exhaustion had addled his senses. "Hey," he called, moving toward the phantom. 

The raccoon looked up at him and froze. "What in the ...?" he began, then sprinted off into the swirling white wall. As he went, Knuckles saw him transform several more times. 

The echidna stood still and watched other curious villagers pass by, squinting at the fog and calling to each other. But their bodies morphed and changed as if Knuckles were viewing them through a virtual reality device. He was not the only one confused by this illusion. He watched two villagers stare at each other and slowly circle, frightened and half-cautious. 

"It's the fog," he muttered, groping his way back to the medical tent. He found it and stuck his head in. "Sally, stay inside, there's this fog that's making everybody hallucin--" He broke off as Sally turned, and instead of the squirrel, there stood the half-robot velociraptor Leviathan, glaring at him with glowing electronic eyes. "Knuckles?" it said in Sally's voice, and stepped forward. As it moved the illusion vanished and Sally reappeared. She was looking at him with her eyebrows furrowed. Knuckles drew a breath to calm himself. "Sally, there's this fog that's making us hallucinate. I don't know where it came from." 

She stood looking at him for a long moment, then said, "I don't think it's just outside. You keep changing shapes." 

"You do, too." 

They stared at each other another few minutes, listening to startled shrieks and exclamations from outside the tent. Then Sally moved forward. "I've got to tell everyone what's happening. And someone needs to tell the firefighters not to worry." She stooped and stepped out of the tent opening, to shrieks and a panicked yell. "This is causing total chaos." 

Knuckles gazed after her, his eyes unfocused. If it was causing chaos, could Chaos be causing it? Or more precisely, the Chaos Emeralds? Hadn't Twilight's message said something about colors? 

He bolted from the tent. There was a scroll he had seen in the library and partially translated, about the variations within the Chaos Emeralds. He had to get to his island. 

* * * 

In the Forbidden Zone, Slasher lay curled in a ball with her eyes shut, refusing to look at the deceptions put forth by the fog. Metal Sonic worked amid his instruments, oblivious. 

Several hundred miles from Mecha's hideout, Sonic and his human 'captors' finally emerged from their bunker and observed the fog with amazement. Micare produced a bottle, swished it through the air and screwed on the cap, trapping a sample of the mist. "This could be useful," he called to his morphing companions as he disappeared back into the depths of their shelter. 

On the outskirts of Riverbase, hidden in a darkened factory, Twilight observed the fog with calm interest. Tails was frightened at first to see the black hedgehog and his velociraptor changing shapes every time they moved, but Twilight assured him it was only an illusion. "This is only another minor flux," said the black hedgehog, inspecting the contraption Tails was building. "It will pass in time. You do good work, Tails." 

"It's almost done," replied Tails, warming to the praise, even though it came from an enemy. "All I have to do now is attach this part to the picture tube, and sauter it all together." 

"Good!" said Twilight. "It will be done before the final flux, and perhaps it will not be so dangerous as it was before." 

Tails watched Twilight's black gloved hands turn the square, delicate mesh of silicon around and around. Hands that knew their way around technology. Their grace and dexterity struck Tails as odd, but he didn't know why. 

As Twilight handed the invention back to Tails, their fingers touched, and Tails felt a cold shiver snake down his spine. He turned away and set it down, trying to keep the fur on his back from standing up. There was something fundamentally wrong about Twilight, but it was so subtle the fox couldn't identify it. 

The trouble was that Twilight sensed Tails' discomfort. He grinned and knelt in front of Tails, facing him over the table where the fox was working. "You feel it, don't you?" he said quietly. "The aura of Chaos. It pours from my fur. I exhale it. It makes normal people uncomfortable." 

He looked Tails in the eye, and Tails' mind tried to comprehend what his gut was screaming. "You ARE Shadow, aren't you?" he said, trying to keep his voice steady. 

The black hedgehog smiled a small, twisted smile. "That was my name once. Yes." 

When Twilight at last backed off to let Tails work, Tails found his hands were trembling. And still, he did not know why. 

* * * 

Knuckles hit the Sandopolis library door running. He burst inside in a swirl of mist, slammed the door, and ran for the shelf where he had left the scroll. He snatched it up, dashed to the table and nearly upset it sitting down. He was on the verge of a great discovery, he knew it! Clumsy in his excitement, he dropped his notebooks twice before he got them opened, and tore the scroll unrolling it. Cursing his excitement, he forced himself to calm down and move slower. "Marble Gardens wasn't built in a day," he reminded himself, "and you can't make a great discovery all in a minute." 

The words flew under his pencil. Verbs, nouns, proper tense, plural conjugation--he forced himself to think mechanically and not read the things he was translating. He would think about it later. Right now he had to capture it on paper. 

The echidna worked for two hours, hardly moving from his position, once in a while unfurling the scroll a little more. He filled page after page of his notebook, writing feverishly, hating to delay long enough to look up a word. He was on a roll now. He had found the information he had been seeking for so long. 

At last he reached the closing comments and laid down his pencil. He straightened, stretched, and opened his notebook at the beginning. It was time to read it. 

Ten minutes later he left the library, the precious notebook under one arm, and a distracted look in his eyes. But one thing he knew for sure. 

They had to find Sonic. 

* * * 

Zephyer stumbled through the fog, hardly caring that the fires were out, or that the mist changed anything seen through it. She was too emotionally drained to notice anything. All she wanted to do was crawl away and sleep for two years. 

The robotized echidna reached the spot where her tent had stood, and stopped. There was nothing left but a mess of burned canvas and poles. Two villagers were making a half-hearted attempt to clean it up, but the fog had distracted all further aid in their area. 

Zephyer swayed on her feet. She had stayed in the Hidden Palace for hours, too shell-shocked to leave. Then she had wandered into the crystal caverns, looking for water, but found none drinkable for three miles. By the time she made it back to the cavern with the teleporter lens, she could think of nothing she wanted more than her bed in Knothole. 

She thought of it again, among the mess that had been their camp. But she couldn't face the thought of the long trek back to the village. Instead she picked her way back to the closest, unharmed tents, crawled into the nearest one and stretched out on the tarpaulin floor. She didn't think the occupant would mind much, if she explained when they returned ... that was her last thought before sleep claimed her. 

The occupant of the tent was off on a mission of his own, informing the firefighting teams that the fog was causing an optical illusion. He was a peregrine falcon, and with Slasher and Tails gone, he was the only Mobian left in Knothole with flight capability. 

Tachyon did not care for running errands, not with such heavy fog blanketing the world. His eyes could pick out a sparrow in the grass from two thousand feet, but they could not pierce the mist for more than ten feet. It was the kind of weather he was most uncomfortable in. However, there was one small consolation: people on the ground wouldn't point and wave at him. 

Locating the fires was a dangerous business. There were three still burning, and Tachyon flew right over the third one, singeing his belly and wings, and filling his eyes with ash. 

Smarting, he flew back to camp. He was too embarrassed to admit to Sally that he had been careless, and flew straight to his tent. He was only singed, he was sure. The worst damage had been the soot flying into his eyes, making them water and sting. 

He landed, and holding his wings half open, lifted the tent flap, stepped in and froze. Was that a black robotized cat lying on the floor, waiting for him? He tilted his head and the illusion vanished, revealing Zephyer stretched out on her side, sleeping. Tachyon was irritated. What was she doing here? Especially when he wanted privacy to preen his damaged feathers. 

The echidna slept on, and gave no sign of waking. Tachyon didn't have the nerve to wake her up--Zephyer had been known to punch people by reflex if they disturbed her. The falcon eyed her another moment, blinking his third eyelids rapidly. Then he carefully stepped around her and settled down in his 'nest', which was two blankets pulled into a shallow bowl-shape. Keeping one eye on his uninvited guest, he began to preen his feathers with his hooked beak. 

He had a few feathers with melted ends, but aside from them he had not been seriously harmed. He plucked the most scorched of his feathers and smoothed the rest, keeping one black eye all the time on Zephyer. 

The falcon was working on his right wing and making a faint rustling when Zephyer sighed and opened her eyes. Tachyon folded his wings and looked at her. She lifted her head. "Tachyon? Is this your tent?" 

He inclined his head in a slight nod. 

"I'm sorry." She sat up, head and shoulders drooping. "My tent's gone." 

Tachyon felt sorry for her, which made him feel awkward. He didn't know that she had stopped Knuckles, but he had observed her tarnished, smoke-stained metal body and guessed she had helped fight fires the previous night. But he didn't know what to say, so he remained silent. 

Zephyer looked at him another moment, then crawled out of the tent. She paused outside. "Is there anywhere I can get something for burns?" 

"Yes," replied Tachyon in a slightly high-pitched voice. "The big tent on the east side." 

"Thanks," muttered the echidna. "I think the fog's clearing." 

Tachyon listened to her departing footsteps and felt like a heel for no reason. 

* * * 

Zephyer was still tired, but felt a little refreshed from her nap. Now her face felt numb, and she remembered that Knuckles had burned her when he knocked her down. She plodded toward the big medical tent through patches of clearing mist. A breeze was blowing, rippling tent canvas and sending the fog by in dense clouds. Once in a while a ray of sunlight would slant down, and looking up, Zephyer could see blue sky. 

Sally was sitting in a corner, resting, but jumped up when Zephyer came in. "Zeff! You're okay!" 

"I think my face is burned," replied the echidna. "Could you put something on it?" She held up her metal hands, which were not suited to rubbing lotion into injured flesh. 

The squirrel complied, her hands gentle and swift. When she was finished, Zephyer asked about getting a place to stay, but was interrupted as the door flap was flung aside and Knuckles burst in, dreadlocks flying about him. 

"Sally, we've got to find Sonic," he said, then looked at Zephyer. She looked away. 

Sally ignored this. "Why? What have you found?" 

Knuckles opened his notebook and held it out. Sally took it and began to read, eyebrows furrowed. There was a moment's silence. Zephyer stared at the wall of the tent, or the floor, or a nearby pole, but would not look at Knuckles. He watched her, sensing that she was still angry with him. He figured she would get over it and turned to Sally, whose eyes were widening. "Knuckles ... does this mean ...?" 

"We've got to find him within four days," said the echidna. "There's no telling where he is, but wasn't Slasher wearing a communicator?" 

"Yes," said Sally. "I've already tried tracking it, and it's out of range." 

"Rats." Knuckles bit his lip and looked at the floor, thinking. "Could we send someone to Riverbase? We know he was there last. Maybe he went looking for Tails." 

"Maybe." Sally looked dubious. "We only have four days." 

Unexpectedly Zephyer spoke up. "Tachyon's fast." 

Knuckles and Sally looked at her, but she was looking at Sally, as if Knuckles weren't there. "Tachyon could hunt around and it'd only take him a day or two." 

Sally hesitated, then said, "Okay, I'll ask him." She left the tent. Zephyer sideyed Knuckles and did the same, leaving him alone and feeling somewhat silly. After a moment he went after them. 

Zephyer fell into step beside Sally as they strode through the camp. "I hope Sonic's okay," Sally said softly to the echidna. "With him missing, it's like my right arm's gone. And Tails, and Slasher ..." 

Zephyer looked at her and saw a terrible anxiety in the squirrel's blue eyes that had grown day by day, but was kept masked by Sally's iron self-control. Zephyer was suddenly moved. Here she had been caught up in her own petty troubles, when her friend was suffering. "Can I do anything to help?" 

"You already do," said Sally. "You helped organize the camp, and you neutralized Knuckles. I couldn't ask anything more." 

They arrived at Tachyon's tent, and Sally patted the top instead of knocking. "Tachyon?" 

"Yes?" The falcon's gray-striped head emerged from the door and looked up at them with one black eye. 

"I need you to fly to Riverbase and look for Sonic," said Sally. "It's imperative that we find him within four days." 

"Very well," said the bird. He withdrew into the tent, and stepped out a moment later, buckling a belt around his middle. Zephyer watched his wingtips bend as he fastened the belt. She knew his wings were more like hands with long, delicate fingers, but it never ceased to amaze her to see how graceful they were. 

Tachyon looked up at them. "Is there anywhere I should focus on?" 

Sally shook her head. "We don't know where he is. You'll have to comb the whole city." 

Tachyon looked at the ground a moment, digesting this. "Affirmative. Goodbye." He walked a little ways past them, opened his wings and fluttered toward the clearing sky. 

* * * 

"Water vapor," announced Micare. 

The blue-haired human was peering at a computer screen over a complicated mass of wires and sharp metal tips that composed a sensor array. In the center of the sensors was a small tube with a sample of the fog in it, which by this time had condensed on the sides. The sensors scanned it and dumped their findings into the network. Micare had been hard at it for an hour. 

Sonic had run about in the free air, watching the mist dissipate and gazing longingly down the road, which zigzagged away down the mountain. He was homesick, and worried about Slasher, and Tails, and Twilight, and what had happened to Knuckles. He wanted to break into a run and not stop until he was in Knothole. 

But he wanted to see the results of the research team's work, and figured he would hang out until noon. They had agreed to release him, although reluctantly. They viewed him as a valuable find and had plans to use his abilities, but they agreed that he could go home. "But you've got to come back!" insisted Jordan. 

Sonic clattered down the metal steps and was watching over Micare's shoulder when he announced that the mist was water vapor. "But there are some peculiarities at the molecular level," he added, half to himself. "The computer's chewing on it." 

Andrew appeared and sat down at another console. There was a moment of silence. 

"Aha," said Micare, fingers flying over a keyboard. "I knew it. It was triggered by a variance in the Chaos Fields." 

"What?" Sonic asked. 

Micare glanced at him. "The chaotic wave patterns neared the upper end of their spectrum and caused the molecules near them to vibrate. It probably created fog around the globe." 

"Right," said the hedgehog. "At least I got the second half of that. So it was another jump in Chaos energy?" 

Micare pulled up a screen with a line chart, which again had jumped off the top and was just descending back toward its normal levels. "Yup." 

"Dude, look at this," said Andrew. On his screen was a line chart that measured Chaos Levels over a long period. There were five spikes in it--the recent fluxes--but each time the line descended, it stopped at a higher point. The 'neutral' Chaos Levels were rising. 

"Oh my gosh!" said Micare, staring. "Why haven't we seen that before?" 

"You were, like, busy with Sonic," replied Andrew, ironically. "And the world's like collapsing, you know?" 

"Five," Sonic muttered, drawing their attention. His fists were clenched, blue spines bristling. "There's only two left. I've got to get home." He ran for the stairs. 

Micare scrambled after him, but he was not as quick as the hedgehog. "Sonic! Make sure you come back!" 

"I will, if the world doesn't end!" Sonic hollered over his shoulder. 

He dodged around Jordan at the door of the bunker and bolted down the mountain. His heart was racing. Once the last emerald fluxed, the Chaos Levels would be so high that anything could happen. And what then? What could he do? He had a vague idea of getting Knuckles to use the Master Emerald, or Chaos Controlling somehow. 

The point was to get home. 

* * * 

Slasher was pacing. Three steps forward, turn. Three steps back, turn. With each turn her long tail whipped over Metal Sonic's head, but he paid no attention. He was standing at the far end of the room, downloading a transmission. 

Slasher was accustomed to more exercise than she had received in the past three days. Cooped up in the small stone building, the velociraptor had to do something to burn energy that did not involve beating Metal Sonic to scrap against the floor. She wanted out, she wanted more food than the skimpy rations he had been giving her, and she, like Sonic and Tails, was homesick. 

Three steps forward, about face, three steps back. One way she faced a star etched into the wall, and the other way she faced a thing like a hash mark. Back and forth, back and forth. With each turn she lowered her tail until it was brushing Metal Sonic's pointed ears. Was he capable of becoming annoyed? If so, at least the results would be interesting. 

He lifted his head, and her tail glanced off his face. He looked at her. "Desist. I have received news." He walked past her and flung the door open. "Go." 

There was no need to tell her twice. Slasher whisked outside, glanced around the hilltop, then turned inquiringly to Mecha. He was closing and locking the door with careful precision. "Going somewhere?" 

"I am leaving this zone," droned the robot. "You may go where you choose. The odds are against your survival." 

"Why is that?" asked Slasher, shifting her bandaged wing a little. 

Mecha stepped into the open and ignited the jet in his back, lifting a few inches into the air. "The next flux involves electricity," he said. "The Forbidden Zone will be the hardest hit. I would not survive. Goodbye." He kicked off, flew down the hill and across the swamp in a swirl of hot exhaust. 

Slasher listened as the screech of his jet dwindled into silence, and glanced at the sun. She would need to travel west, if she remembered her maps correctly. 

The raptor leaped down the hill in three bounds, and dashed along the edge of the swamp. She had a long way to go before she would consider herself safe from the flux. 

* * * 

Riverbase was in shambles. Tachyon flew here and there, once in a while landing in a tree or on a stable rooftop to look around. The city had been devastated by earthquakes. Buildings lay with walls caved in, and some were mountains of rubble. There were apartment buildings with half the walls missing, the rooms inside exposed to the open air. Here and there were little shelters and gatherings of survivors, and teams worked among the rubble, looking for trapped unfortunates. The largest gathering of people was along the river, where water was available. 

Tachyon despaired of finding Sonic, but dutifully looked anyway. The falcon was tired, his wings ached, and he was growing hungry. In his heart of hearts he resented being assigned such a mission, but years of training had killed his ability to defy an order. He would do as commanded, but he was unhappy about it. 

The sun sank behind the treetops across the river, washing the sky with orange. Tachyon tried to ignore the insistent gnawing in his stomach as he circled an industrial park. The buildings here were intact, but all the factories were shut down, and all their windows were dark. 

He landed on a jutting pipe, the silent dusk weighing on his spirits. He was not a social bird, but this kind of solitude, where everyone for miles was suffering, was depressing. He actually missed the cheerful rumble of Knothole. 

Tachyon was unclipping the communicator from his belt, wondering if Sally would want him to stay the night, when a light flickered in a factory window thirty feet away. "Someone looking for shelter," he thought. 

The light came again, but this time it cast Tails' shadow on the windowpane. 

The falcon jumped off his perch and skimmed toward the window. It had a wide ledge which he landed on, and standing to one side, peered in. 

* * * 

The hanging light above the worktable swung as Twilight brushed past it, the claws on his gloves extended. Tails circled the table, keeping it between them. "I was just looking at the Cyclone, I wasn't doing anything--" 

"You were sending a message," hissed the black hedgehog, his eyes dilated in the dim light. "Contacting your friends! SOS, send help!" 

"No, I wasn't--" 

Twilight jumped over the table and sprang at Tails. They struck the floor with a grunt, and Twilight pressed the flats of his claws into Tails' face. "Don't struggle," he snarled, sitting up. "And don't deny it." 

Tails lay still and panting, eyes wide above the gleaming steel. Twilight glared at him with withering scorn, and his mouth worked. "I would kill you if not for ..." He withdrew his claws and pointed at the table, where Tails' invention lay amid a tangle of power cables. "Finish it. If you don't, we die." 

"And if I do, I die?" Tails whispered. 

A smile stretched the corners of the black hedgehog's mouth. "If I knew how, I would." He stood up and moved away, and Tails shakily picked himself up. 

* * * 

Tachyon flew to the roof, shaken by what he had seen. His feather-fingers fumbled at the communicator buttons. "Sally," he said quietly, "I've found Tails."


	8. Sixth flux

Sonic was a timezone away from home, and in the mountains it was dark. The road was a pair of tracks through grass, and was so seldom travelled that it was nearly overgrown. It looped back and forth across the mountain and the hills below, and was not the best sort of road to traverse at high speeds. 

When it grew too dark to see, Sonic reluctantly made a bed for himself in the dry weeds on the roadside. It made a rustly, scratchy sort of mattress, and Sonic lay on his back, thinking of all the insects that he would attract. The sky was clear. He watched the stars, wide awake and ready to run for hours more. The fluxes had not been the same distance apart--chaos never repeated itself--so he had no idea when the next one would come. What would it be? There had been a fog, and that weird teleport ... maybe those had been the green and white emeralds. The other two had happened at the same time, but he would not know what they had done until he got home. He hoped Knuckles hadn't died. Or what if he had killed someone? 

He propped himself up on one elbow and peered into the tree-filled darkness to the west. It was too dark to leave. He lay back down and returned to his worries. 

Gradually he became aware that the darkness was less. He must have dozed despite his restlessness, for when he looked at the sky, the moons were lifting above the eastern ridge behind him. They were full and shed plenty of light. 

The hedgehog abandoned his bed and galloped down the road. 

* * * 

Slasher, too, was travelling, but her night-vision was better than Sonic's. The velociraptor had left the marshland behind and ran through the forested upland like a ghost. She knew there were creatures in these woods that would view her as easy prey, but nothing attacked her. She smelled many tracks, and once hid herself as something large and clawed stalked by, but on the whole she made good time. 

Metal Sonic's words kept ringing in her ears. "The next flux involves electricity." What would it be, a colossal lightning storm? Knowing that the last flux had been fog, that was a good guess. Where was he getting his information? Who knew that much about the Chaos Emeralds? Knuckles, maybe. But Knuckles wouldn't give data to Mecha. 

Slasher slowed to a walk, panting. Time to catch her breath, then another sprint. She was hungry and tempted to hunt, but knew that she must be far from this place by morning. 

The point was to get home. 

* * * 

Tails worked over his invention, double-checking wires, connections and voltage with a small device hooked to a dial. Power came from a generator outside. He was aware of Twilight and Beast's eyes boring into his back. They were giving him no more chances, not after they had left him and he had made for the Cyclone's radio set. Now he was tired and wanted to lie down, but Twilight wanted the machine done tonight. 

He rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand and watched the dancing needle on the dial. The final connection was tested. Moving slowly and wearily, he lifted the casing, set it around the machine, and began to screw it down. 

"Is it done?" came Twilight's soft, irritated voice. 

"Yeah." Tails didn't look up. He heard Twilight step forward, and the click of Beast's claws as the dinosaur moved off to stand guard. Twilight stood there until Tails had tightened the final screw. "Can I go to bed now?" asked Tails. 

"Not yet," said Twilight, turning the device so its screen faced him. "I want you to be here when I test it." 

"I've already tested it," replied Tails, cross enough to disagree. "It didn't do anything." 

"Of course not," said Twilight, flipping the power switch. The screen flashed blue. "It needs the master touch." He reached into his black gauntlet sleeve and pulled out a black plastic stick like an antenna. He touched it to a metal port in the device's top, and images blinked onto the screen. 

Tails watched as Twilight adjusted the antenna. "Good reception," muttered the hedgehog. 

"What--what is it?" Tails asked. It was showing random images, some blurry, some crystal clear. As Twilight adjusted it, it showed bolts of lightning plunging from the sky and blasting the ground. 

"How interesting," said Twilight. "The next flux will be violet." 

Tails' stomach heaved. He whirled away and knelt on the floor, fighting waves of nausea. The violet emerald had been his own, after a fashion. Pilot, his chao, had used it, and it had granted her the power to launch a devastating lightning melee. He had not thought of what would happen when his emerald fluxed. The idea of Pilot's lightning storm magnified a trillion times threatened to make him throw up. 

"You can go to bed now," came Twilight's cool, amused voice. "And try not to puke until you reach the bathroom." 

Tails clutched his stomach and ran. At the same time, he knew there was something horribly disturbing about Twilight. 

* * * 

It came an hour before dawn. 

The moons had set in the west, leaving a dim yellow glow along the horizon. Sonic had run most of the night, stopping occassionally for water. The road vanished and reappeared as it wound its way over the ridges Sonic knew as the Dark Mountains. There were no trees, for the soil was rocky and only a little dry scrub flourished in the cracks. Sonic wished for his emerald belt in its drawer in Knothole, as he stumbled over the rough ground in the dark. If he had his Super Emeralds, he could fly home in a minute or two instead of busting his legs on the rocks. 

At last the road sloped down into forest, and the sound of crickets arose to meet the panting hedgehog. The rocks abated, and he could see the path, winding away like a silver ribbon into the darkness under the trees. Further down, past outlying hills and slopes, he saw a solid mass he knew was the Great Forest. He was nearly home. 

Close as he was, Sonic had the wit to gauge his own strength and realize he needed to rest. He had come several hundred miles in eight hours, and his iron constitution was weary. He followed the path off the ridge and into the forest for half a mile, looking for water. The night was darker now that the moons had set, and the stars looked heavy and bright. Morning was near. 

All at once the stars winked out. Sonic froze and stared at the sky. The dark night was becoming darker, as if clouds had materialized and were coiling together in the upper airs. Sonic groped sideways into the woods. He felt the smooth trunk of a tree and crouched at its foot, wondering if this was a flux, and what color it was. 

The lightning began without warning. One second the world was cloaked in blackness--the next instant the night was torn with bolts of blinding light. Thunder crashed into Sonic's eardrums. He saw every blade of grass beneath him outlined in white light, knife-edged with black shadows. He saw his own soiled gloves, and the texture of the tree's trunk above him. Then he looked at the sky and stared in hypnotized fascination. 

The sky had become a mass of writhing, interlacing chain lightning. It leaped from cloud to cloud, tinted pink, gold and green, then stabbed earthward in tongues of flame. The clouds themselves looked like congealed smoke, for they rolled and boiled and belched out electricity. It was as if something had twisted the weather into doing something so unnatural that the very sky was in pain. 

Sonic was unaware of his danger until lightning split a tree a hundred paces from where he sat. The ground vibrated, and the crack nearly deafened him. Every survival guide he had ever read came back to him: sitting under a tree in a storm was like sticking a lightning rod on his head. The hedgehog scrambled to his feet and ran down the path. 

Lightning was striking everywhere. It looked like long white legs were stalking across the mountains. If only he could find proper shelter--but what could protect anyone from such celestial fury? He had never seen lightning do so many things. It danced among the treetops and bolted back up into the sky, or formed spheres of flame and bounced down the path ahead of him. 

Sonic felt his spines bristle with static electricity. Before he could think of what this meant, a lightning bolt struck a juniper six feet to his right. 

He came to several hours later. He was lying face down on the path, and there was a pounding in his head as if echoes of thunder had not yet died away. He slowly sat up, blinking. It was daylight and the lightning had stopped, but the sky was overcast and sullen. Sonic rubbed his forehead, disoriented. Where was he? He looked around and saw the burned stump of the tree that had been the cause of his blackout. Oh yeah, there had been a flux. And he was almost home! 

He stood up and jogged stiffly down the trail, the thought of getting home giving his weary body new strength. 

* * * 

The lightning storm struck Riverbase with the same fury it had unleashed on the mountains. Twilight and Beast paced from window to window, watching with pleasure. Tails sat in the floor in his tiny work area, staring at his shoes, trying to ignore the flashes and thunderclaps. He hated storms, especially at night. The fact that it was 4 AM made no difference. 

Beast stood at one window and peered out, then gave a loud chirp. Twilight raced to the dinosaur's side and followed its gaze. The lightning danced and shivered outside. "Catch it," said Twilight. 

His voice was quiet, but the storm had abated for a second, and Tails heard him. The fox lifted his head and watched Beast whisk for the door, wondering what the raptor had been ordered to catch. And how could it stand to go outside in that storm? 

Tails rested his forehead on his knees and covered his ears as thunder cracked, rattling the factory building. He wanted it to stop, he wanted to go home, and he regretted building the contraption for Twilight. 

The outer door opened, and Beast entered, carrying something in its forepaws. "Master!" it called, as lightning threw it into silhouette. "Look who it is!" 

Tails leaped to his feet and stared in stark silence. Not only could Beast talk, but a pair of wings were half-opened above its back, bat-like skin stretched between long bony fingers. As Tails watched it folded these to its sides, and they lay so flat that he had not noticed them before. He watched as Twilight ran to the raptor, and suddenly he understood why Twilight had always made him uneasy. Of course! It was the leap of logic that had taken him so long. The fur on his back rose in waves. 

Twilight and Beast walked to him, the near-constant lightning lighting their way. Beast was carrying a ball of feathers, and only the tiny jerks of its head showed Tails it was alive. "Hello, Tachyon," Twilight said with a smirk as Beast dropped the falcon on the floor beside Tails. "Fancy meeting you here. What were you doing out in a storm like this?" 

Tachyon adjusted his wings and fixed one cold eye on Twilight. 

"Not inclined to talk, eh?" said Twilight, clasping his hands behind his back. "You'll talk to Tails, won't you? Yes, we'll all await the final flux, and you can give Tails all the news you like." 

"Don't say anything!" hissed Tails. "I know who they are!" 

Twilight's attention turned to Tails, and his eyes lit up. "So, the boy genius has figured it out, has he? Do you see now why I have made no move to harm you?" 

"No," said Tails, "but it doesn't matter. You'll never get the emeralds." 

"Who said I was after the emeralds?" said Twilight, still smiling. "I don't need Chaos Emeralds to achieve immortality. All I need is Sonic." 

* * * 

It was a gray, gloomy sort of morning as Sonic rocketed into the Knothole camp, tired, hungry and anxious. The first person he met was Sally, as she stepped out of her tent. "Sally!" he said. 

She froze and stared, mouth dropping open. "Sonic!" She flew to him and they exchanged hugs. "Oh Sonic, I was afraid you weren't coming back," she whispered, pulling away and looking at him again. 

He grinned his old carefree grin. "Of course I'd come back, Sal. I'll always come back." 

Sally opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind and hugged him again. 

"Okay, so you missed me," he laughed. He pushed her away and asked, "What's happened here? Did Tails come back?" 

"No," said Sally, sobering. "There's good news and bad news about him." 

"Bad news first," said Sonic. 

Sally drew a breath. "The bad news is that he's been kidnapped by Twilight." 

"I guessed that," said Sonic. 

"Oh?" said Sally, looking relieved. "The good news is that we know where they are." 

"You do?" Sonic's eyes widened. "Where?" 

"Riverbase. But Twilight's using him as bait, Tachyon said. Tails is okay, and he built some machine for them." 

"Tachyon found him, eh?" said Sonic. "You mean Slasher hasn't come back?" 

"No." Sally looked down. "That's not the worst of it. Knuckles found some information on the flux ..." 

"No more," said Sonic, holding up both hands. "Don't tell me any more. I can't take this on an empty stomach." 

"You want breakfast?" 

"Yeah, and the strongest dose of caffeine we have. I'm gonna need it." 

Twenty minutes later found Sonic eating everything Sally put in front of him, from cold rations to last night's leftovers to a hastily heated chilidog. He washed it down with coffee so black that Sally had been going to pour it out. "Nothing like caffeine to brace you up for a fight," he commented between bites. "Where's Knux? I need a briefing." 

Sally left, and a little later Knuckles entered, looking grim and carrying a knapsack over one shoulder. He dropped this and a notebook in front of Sonic and sat down in a vacant chair beside the hedgehog. "Hi Sonic, glad you're back, we're in serious trouble." 

"That's quite a greeting," commented Sonic. "Like duh, we're in trouble. There's only one flux left, right?" 

"Two," said Knuckles, opening his notebook. "The amber emerald, then all seven will flux together." 

Sonic peered at him. "Were you involved in a flux?" 

Knuckles avoided his gaze. "Yes, but there's no time for the story now. Read this." 

Sonic drank another cup of coffee as he read Knuckles' untidy scrawl. Gradually he pushed the cup aside and gripped the notebook, eyes widening. When he finished, he looked at the crimson echidna. "This has happened before." 

Knuckles nodded. "It was directed out into space. You'll have to do the same thing." When Sonic said nothing, the echidna went on, "Chaos levels have been rising for a long time, and we didn't know it. It's only been recently that it's been noticeable. Chaos broke out of the Master Emerald. Serena's suddenly become a seer. Leviathan was actually built. The thing with the Thunderbird. Robotnik found out about Shadow." 

Sonic stirred and looked up. "And Shadow survived?" 

"I didn't say that," said Knuckles quietly. "And remember when the campfire exploded? Rising Chaos Levels again." 

"But you just proved that the impossible could happen," argued Sonic. "Shadow could be alive." He stood up and opened the knapsack, which contained the six remaining Chaos Emeralds. They were all flickering. 

After a moment Sonic asked, without turning, "Knuckles, about the guy who did the flux before. What happened to him?" 

Knuckles didn't answer. Sonic turned and saw his friend tracing a pattern on the table top. "Knux, you must know." 

After a long moment, the echidna muttered, "He died." 

"But he was inexperienced." 

"Yeah." Knuckles cleared his throat. "He had only mastered three emerald uses: See, Timestop, and Chaos Control." 

Sonic returned his gaze to the flickering Chaos Emeralds. "So this might kill me." 

"Yeah." 

Sonic forced a smile. "It might just give me a high or something." 

"Yeah." Knuckles' voice was devoid of emotion. He rose and faced the hedgehog. "Try to get Tails clear. They're in some factory on the east side of Riverbase." 

"Yeah, Sally told me." 

They faced each other over the emeralds, and it dawned on them that they might never see each other again. Sonic held out a hand, and Knuckles shook it. "Look after Knothole while I'm gone, okay?" 

"I will, Sonic. Be careful." 

They looked at each other a second longer, not knowing what to say, then Sonic hoisted the knapsack onto his shoulder and walked out. 

* * * 

An hour after Sonic left, Slasher entered the village, limping on worn and bloody feet. "Has Sonic been back?" she asked Sally, having hunted down the squirrel, who looked as if she had been crying. 

"He's come and gone," said Sally, bandaging the velociraptor's feet. "Tails and Twilight are in Riverbase, and he's gone to stop the flux." 

"Great," muttered Slasher, propped up on her elbows. "And you let him go alone?" 

"Yes." 

"Great!" the raptor repeated. "Sonic's going to meet up with some maniac black hedgehog who is probably a killer in disguise!" 

"You're not going after him, are you?" 

"You bet I am!" snapped the raptor. "He's probably there by now, being strung up by that Twilight fiend, but I'm going after him." 

"Slasher--" 

"Sally, Twilight has another raptor with him. Do you think ... I'm ..." Slasher trailed off, her eyes widening. "You don't think ..." 

"What?" Sally looked at her, but the raptor was staring off into space. "Could it be possible ...?" 

Slasher leaped to her feet. "Sal, I gotta go. I'll be back when this is over!" She sprinted off into the trees. 

Sally watched her go, forlorn. "Please bring him back," she whispered.


	9. The Twilight zone

Tachyon and Tails huddled in the floor under the watchful eye of Beast. Twilight was seated a few feet away with Tails' gadget in his lap, staring into the screen. It was very quiet. 

Tachyon looked at Tails and whispered in the quietest of whispers, "Are you all right?" 

Tails nodded, and mouthed, "They haven't hurt me." 

"I informed Knothole," whispered Tachyon, hardly opening his beak. "If Sonic is there, he'll come." 

Tails looked up at Beast, who was standing with her weight on one foot and had a yellow eye fixed on them. "I wish I could warn him." 

There was silence a moment. Tachyon shifted his wings and ruffled his feathers against a faint draft along the cement floor. "Who are they?" 

Tails opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted as Twilight remarked, "Aha, here he comes." 

Tails sprang from the floor and bolted for the door with such speed that Beast was taken by surprise. She turned to pursue him, but Tachyon flew into her face and slashed at her eyes with his hooked beak. "Run Tails!" the falcon screeched, amazed at his own bravery. 

Twilight sat where he was and grinned. 

Tails reached the factory door, panting, and heaved it open. He had one thought in his head--to warn Sonic. He dashed into the overcast morning air, and ran into Sonic himself, who was standing outside the door. 

"Tails!" Sonic exclaimed, catching his sidekick before he could fall over. "What--I thought you were captured--" 

"Don't go in!" Tails gasped, clinging to Sonic with strength borne of terror. Above all, Sonic must stay away from them. "Twilight and Beast are in there, and Twilight wants you!" 

Sonic held him, alarmed and excited all at once. "Is he Shadow?" 

Tails heard a footstep behind him, and Twilight's voice said to him, "He can call me Shadow if he likes, little bro." 

Sonic flung Tails behind him and stood still, spines bristling. He and Twilight faced each other, silent. Twilight was smiling. 

"No," Tails panted softly, "that's not Shadow." 

"I haven't been called Shadow in years, but you may call me that," said Twilight. "What did you used to call me? Dark Sonic? Anti Sonic?" 

"I killed you," said Sonic through his teeth. "The rocket exploded while you were standing on it." 

"I survived because I ran," replied Twilight, still smiling his infuriating smile. "Although I was burned, and had to have my fur re-grafted from a black-furred donor." He motioned to the sky. "I survived it the same way I did the ARK and those nuts Gerald and Maria. Maria was a bio-engineered android who tried to crash the station, and it about killed me stopping her." 

Sonic stared. So Shadow was dead. He felt a combination of rage and grief rising in him. 

Twilight's grin widened. "In my world, I am both Sonic and Shadow. So you can call me either one." 

Beast stepped into the doorway behind Twilight, carrying Tachyon in her forepaws. He was rumpled and angry-looking, but unhurt. Without turning to look at her, Twilight said, "Come inside, Sonic. If you don't, I'll order Beast to eat Tachyon. Seeing as the Slasher here didn't do the job." 

Tachyon's feathers sucked in and he gave Sonic a look of stark terror. Sonic looked at Twilight. "If I come with you, will you let Tachyon and Tails go?" 

"Of course," said Twilight idly. "Come in." He stood aside, and Sonic cautiously walked past the black hedgehog and velociraptor into the dark factory. 

Beast pitched Tachyon out into the courtyard with Tails, and Twilight slammed the door. Tails and Tachyon heard the locks slam home, and three pairs of footsteps walk off inside the building. 

"What do we do now?" asked Tails as the falcon stood up and dusted himself off. 

"Anything that does not involve attacking the dark Slasher," said Tachyon, trying to sound prim. He was shaking all over. 

"Well, they won't hurt me," said Tails stubbornly. "Fly home and get help. I'm going to watch and make sure they don't hurt Sonic." He spun his tails and helicoptered up to a window ledge. 

Tachyon was only too glad to oblige. He opened his wings and shot northwards. 

Tails could see the two hedgehogs and raptor. They were standing still, talking. He pressed his ear against the glass. 

Down in the shadowed gloom of the factory floor, Sonic was listening to his evil double and grinding his teeth. Twilight was detailing his plan. "As I stated in my letters, Sonic, I cannot harm you. We are the same person in two worlds, like two sides of a coin. If I die, you die, and vice versa. I have come to ensure that you do not die." 

"Like how?" Sonic had forgotten how sleek and oily the alter-Slasher was, or the horror of seeing her with bat wings. He had also forgotten the shock of looking into his double's eyes and knowing that their lives were entwined like fibers in a string. 

Twilight's eyes were half-closed with satisfaction. "This world is about to end. When it does, all life on it will be erased, including yours. When it does, I will sicken mysteriously and die. I do not want that to happen. I propose that you return to my world. Together, we will live forever." Twilight gestured to the device that Tails had built. "When the final flux comes, it will reopen the portal I used to travel here. All we have to do is step through." He held out a hand. "What do you say?" 

Sonic spat on the ground. "I say you suck. I wouldn't live forever in your world or anywhere else, and I've been there before. I hate your world." 

Twilight withdrew his hand, unperturbed. "I knew you would refuse. Thus I took advantage of your world's rising Chaos Levels, and chanced befriending an old friend of yours. He arrived this morning." He lifted a hand and waved. "Say hello, Mecha." 

Sonic spun around and saw Metal Sonic standing behind him, clawed hands at his sides, red eyes glowing. 

"Make sure he does not escape," said Twilight. 

* * * 

Tails yelled and beat his fists against the window as Metal Sonic chased Sonic around the factory, but all he did was attract Twilight's attention. Twilight pointed at Tails and laughed. 

The fox leaped from the window ledge and strained to open the door, but it was locked on the inside. Half blinded with angry tears, Tails ran around the building, looking for a way in. Every door was locked and barred. A few minutes later he was back where he started, listening to bangs and thumps as Mecha and Sonic tore the place apart. As Tails stood outside the door, it rattled and Sonic yelled through, "Tails! Open it!" 

"It's locked!" Tails cried, yanking the handle anyway. He heard Sonic fumbling with the latches, then there was a thud, and the door stopped rattling. A moment later Tails heard Metal Sonic's metallic feet move away from the door. "No!" Tails cried, and attacked the door in panicked fury. 

That was how Tachyon and Slasher found him, five minutes later. "Tails!" exclaimed Slasher, panting. She caught his flailing arms and held him still. He was sobbing and fighting mad. "Let me go!" he cried. "They got Sonic!" 

Slasher pressed him against the wall and held a hand over his mouth. "Hush!" she said softly. "Cool it, it's me. Calm down." 

Tails stopped struggling and blinked up at her. She uncovered his mouth, and he gripped her hand. "Slasher," he whispered, "the evil Sonic and Slasher are in there!" 

"I know, Tachyon told me." The raptor jerked her head toward Tachyon, sitting on the top rung of a ladder twenty feet away. "Are the doors locked?" 

"Yeah, and Mecha's in there," panted Tails, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand. 

Slasher walked off a few steps, peering at the windows. "Have you tried breaking one of those?" 

Before Tails could answer, all the windows were blown out by an immense concussion from inside the factory. Glass showered to the ground, and the fox and dinosaur covered their heads. As the noise subsided, Slasher remarked, "Well, that was convenient," and leaped into one of the windows. 

* * * 

Metal Sonic had pounced on Sonic, stunned him with a blow to the head, then dragged him to the center of the room, where Twilight and Beast were standing. "Well done, Mecha," said Twilight. The green emerald in his torc glinted on his chest as he moved. It was flickering. 

Sonic was flung on the floor, and lay with his eyes half open, staring at the green emerald. A knot was forming on his head where Mecha had struck him, and for the moment he was content to lie still and watch the hypnotic flicker of his emerald. Twilight spoke and waved his hand, and a moment later Metal Sonic moved into Sonic's range of vision, carrying Sonic's knapsack in his hands. 

In his semi-conscious state, Sonic was open to Chaos frequencies. As Twilight took the knapsack, Sonic Chaos Saw what would happen next. He curled up and covered his head. Twilight reached into the sack, and as Sonic had foreseen, pulled out the orange Chaos Emerald. 

Just as with Knuckles, as soon as it was touched, the emerald released a huge energy wave. It blazed yellow in Twilight's hand, and Sonic felt the shockwave strike his back and roll over him in a wave. As it went, brief, bright images emblazoned themselves on his eyelids. It was stronger and clearer than any Chaos See could be--he saw himself battling Twilight, and directing the flux, and sinking to the ground, energized and dying, as Shadow did ... 

Then it was over, and it was quiet again. Sonic lifted his head. All the factory equipment had been blasted against the walls. Beast was crouched on the floor, holding Tails' invention with her eyes closed, and Metal Sonic was lying on the floor, shorted out. Twilight was standing in the same position, spines smoking, a look of surprise on his face. 

Sonic sat up and gave Twilight a sarcastic look. "Boy, are you dumb." 

Twilight looked at him. "I've never used them before, okay?" 

"Try that on the final flux and you'll kill yourself," said Sonic, standing up. "Give me that knapsack." 

Twilight held it away from him. "These are going back to my homeworld." 

"You're dumber than I thought," said Sonic. "That'll implode the universe or something." He was thinking of those visions. He didn't want to die, but something had to be done about his evil double. He looked at the green stone in Twilight's torc again. It had stopped flickering. 

Sonic Chaos Saw again, owing to the extremely high level of Chaos in the vicinity. He saw the next flux, and it was not all seven emeralds together as Knuckles had said. No, there was an eighth emerald that would flux, and it would destroy the planet. 

Twilight was placing each of the Chaos Emeralds in the golden torc around his neck, eyeing Sonic as he did, like a small child with forbidden candy. 

"Twi," said Sonic, knowing the warning was useless, "don't do that." 

The seven gems glinted from Twilight's torc. It was flashier than Sonic's emerald belt, and he guessed it would work exactly the same. "Stop, don't," said Sonic again, as Twilight swiped both hands over the torc. The seven emeralds blazed with light. 

The two hedgehogs turned yellow at the same time. "It works," breathed Super Twilight, looking down at himself. "It works! I'm energized by Chaos!" 

Sonic on the other hand felt as if he were playing chicken with a freight train. He could feel the Eighth Chaos Emerald's flux building from its hiding place on Mobius, and rather than feeling invincible, he was terrified. Being Super left him completely exposed to the renegade emerald's power. Within hours, maybe minutes, its condensed super-evil would pour into him and the rest of the planet. 

Super Sonic looked at the green emerald in Twilight's torc. Perhaps it was because of the heightened Chaos Fields, but he saw around them not a factory building, but a honeycomb of portals to other worlds. As he was looking around, Twilight darted past him and picked up the device Tails had built. His glowing hands touched the metal port in the top. 

The portals swirled and changed, a mass of blue and gold light. The light of other suns streamed across them, and the air of other worlds fanned their faces. Twilight looked at Sonic, then looked in wonder at the portals. 

There. Alter-Mobius. Sonic saw Sonotropolis, and the launching pad where he and Twilight had nearly lost their lives. He pushed Twilight toward it. 

"Oh no you don't!" snarled Twilight. His glowing hands curled around Sonic's, and he pulled Sonic with him toward the portal. 

"You're going alone!" Sonic yelled. The two grappled and struggled next to the portal, so close that through the distorted edge of the portal, Sonic could count the blades of grass on the ground. 

A dark shape pushed between them, breaking them apart. There stood Beast, teeth bared. "Come on, Sonic," she growled, and grabbed his arm. He struggled and fought, then twisted and scraped his invincible spines across her face. She recoiled and snarled. 

Then the real Slasher was there. She bit Beast's arm and knocked her away from Sonic. "Get them through the portal!" Sonic yelled, forgetting to wonder if Slasher could see the portals. 

Behind him, building and growing like a stormcloud, was the Eighth Flux. It was coming, unstoppable, enormous. Desperate, he grabbed Twilight and tried to push him through the portal. Nearby, Slasher and Beast were fighting furiously, so alike it was impossible to tell who was who. Twilight struggled. "No! You're coming, too!" He wrapped an arm around Sonic's neck and tried to put him in a headlock, but Sonic ducked out of it, spun and kicked, wishing Twilight weren't invincible. 

A black blur flew past, and one of the velociraptors entered the portal and stumbled on the grass. It stood up and looked around, bewildered. Beast was through. "Get him, Sonic!" came Slasher's voice from nearby. 

Sonic and Twilight pushed against each other, strength evenly matched, Chaos Power exactly the same. Sonic glared into Twilight's scarred face, the other hedgehog's teeth bared and eyes wild and orange. The golden torc swung at his throat. 

"That's one souvenir you can't take," said Sonic. 

"I'll take more than Chaos Emeralds," Twilight grunted. "How does a cryogenic freeze chamber sound?" 

The Eighth Flux was coming. Sonic could feel it pounding in his ears, the biggest and the most lethal. "The Eighth Emerald," he panted. "Twi, you'd better go because this is going to be bad." 

"I'm taking you with me for the same reason!" 

It began slowly, like the rising tide. Sonic forced Twilight backward, his own yellow glow turning a sickly green. Twilight's eyes widened. "How are you doing that? You're stronger!" 

"Go," whispered Sonic. "Go." 

Twilight's feet slipped through the portal. Sonic released one of Twilight's hands, seized the torc, and yanked. The clasp broke and slid from Twilight's neck. At the same time, Sonic shoved him as hard as he could. Twilight fell into his own world and decharged. He leaped to his feet, snarling. "Then die!" he yelled at Sonic. "Go try to save your world! Go be a hero! Shadow is dead, but Twilight lives!" 

Sonic scarcely heard him. He flew upward, mouth open in an insane yell. The roof of the factory burst away from him in flames and he flew straight up, clutching the golden torc, riding the outer wave of the Eighth Chaos Emerald's fury. He knew that if he stopped, the Eighth Flux would flow through him like light through a laser crystal, just as it had with Knuckles and Twilight. The evil power was eating at him, devouring his mind and soul with a strength that could not be resisted by mental strength. 

He accelerated, clouds burning away in front of him, the atmosphere thinning. He was nearly there, nearly clear, nearly ready. He could hear the voices, the ones that had tormented him in his Emerald Madness when he first encountered the Eighth Emerald. He had not stopped screaming. 

The sky was gone, and there were only stars overhead. He stopped and held up his hands. The Flux rolled on, through him and out toward the stars in a terrific wave of power, where it could travel for millions of miles, collapsing stars and splintering galaxies. 

Twenty million gims of Chaos Energy travelled through Sonic's body in a single second. The three humans in their observation bunker watched in astonishment as Chaos Levels dropped to nothing. Astronomers watched in amazement as the moons moved into stable orbits. And Slasher, Tails and Tachyon watched in awe as a visible beam of green light shot up to a single bright point that was Sonic, and angled away into space. 

Three seconds later it was over. Sonic descended back to them, his now yellow glow flickering like a broken neon sign. The three ran to meet him, and Tails felt a surge of emotion in his chest as he saw Sonic's eyes--a mixture of joy and panic. It looked as if the hedgehog were dead on his feet. 

Sonic landed and held out his hands to Slasher and Tails. "Hi," he said, as if half asleep. His yellow quills returned to blue and drooped, and Slasher caught him as he fell. He looked up at her, Tails and Tachyon. "Hi guys," he said slowly, as if from a great distance. "Chaos ... never ... repeats ... itself ..." His voice dropped to a whisper, and his head drooped sideways. 

"Sonic!" Tails cried. "Is he dead?" 

Slasher groped for a heartbeat. "I--I can't tell." The raptor looked at her two friends, and for the first time in his life, Tails saw tears in the dinosaur's green eyes. 

"Come on, hurry!" She whirled and ran, carrying Sonic, driven by wild fear that she was already too late. 

* * * 

In Knothole, the morning had been spent in watching the southern sky, and wondering if the world would end. Some people simply sat and cried, while others waited, resolute and silent. 

Knuckles and Zephyer sat on the grass side by side, watching the sky. Neither spoke for a long while. The overcast sky lightened a bit as the sun climbed above the horizon. Above the sounds of the camp, the forest was silent, as if waiting. 

"Do you think this is it?" Zephyer asked. 

Knuckles shrugged. "I don't know, it depends." 

Neither spoke for another moment, but they were thinking of Sonic. 

"Why does he have to do it?" Zephyer burst out, turning to Knuckles. "Why couldn't someone else burn up instead?" 

"Sonic has the most experience," said Knuckles. His voice was flat. Zephyer knew him well enough to know that when Knuckles was concerned about something, he became silent and introverted, which was sometimes misinterpreted as disinterest. By all the signs, the echidna was seriously worried. 

Zephyer returned her attention to the south. Her conscience was needling her. She ignored it for as long as she could, then gave in and dropped her eyes to the grass. "I'm sorry I've been mad at you." 

"That's okay." He spoke absently, as if he had not heard her. A moment later he added, "You were mad because I almost killed you, right?" 

"Yeah." 

"Sorry about that." His voice had no inflection, and Zephyer scanned his face to see if he meant it. He was not looking at her, and his eyes were troubled. 

They watched the sky. A feeling of oppression was growing on the air, as if the air pressure was increasing. Zephyer forced herself to breathe deeply to dispel the impression of smothering. "What is it?" she asked. 

"Last flux," said Knuckles. 

Zephyer drew another breath, feeling as if her metal plating were crushing her lungs. "The Eighth Chaos Emerald, right?" 

Knuckles jumped and looked at her, startled into reality. "What did you say?" 

"There's eight emeralds," said Zephyer. "Won't the eighth one flux, too?" 

Knuckles clapped a hand to his forehead. "Oh my gosh, I forgot about the Eighth Chaos Emerald!" He started to get up, then sat down again. "What's the use?" he muttered to himself. "I can't help him now." 

The minutes passed, and the oppressive feeling grew. The gray clouds seemed to press down, crushing the atmosphere into itself. The flux was building. Knuckles lapsed into silence again, and was brooding. Zephyer's imagination painted vivid pictures of what the end of the world might be like, and she wondered whether they would die instantly, or have time to see it coming. 

"Zephyer," said Knuckles suddenly, "will you marry me?" 

He said it in the same flat tone he had used before, and she examined his face cautiously. "Are you serious?" 

He continued to gaze at the southern sky. "Yes." 

She laughed, and it sounded strange in the heavy air. "You certainly picked an odd time for a proposal." 

He looked at her with a wry smile. "If the world ends, I didn't want to leave anything important unfinished. So, will you?" 

"No," said Zephyer evenly. When Knuckles looked disappointed, she added, "I like you a lot, Knux, but I don't love you. If we survive this, court me a little longer, then ask me again." 

"Deal." They shook on it, then returned their attention to the south. 

The sky grew darker, as if a storm was coming. The air was thick and hard to breathe. "It's coming," panted Knuckles. 

Then they saw a green beam shoot up into the clouds, reflecting off their undersides. A violent wind rushed over them, sweeping south, as if the beam were an immense vacuum. The pressure abated, as if the air had been released from a balloon. The sky lightened, and the green beam in the distance vanished, leaving a vapor trail that slowly faded. Everyone drew a deep breath, and a cool wind began to blow. Birds chirped in the forest, as if awakening from a long night. 

Then they were on their feet, laughing, cheering and whooping. The world didn't end! We made it! Things are all right again! Hooray for Sonic! 

The only person in all Knothole who was unhappy was Sally. She stood at the door of her tent, tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. 

"Bring him back, please," she whispered.


	10. Epilogue

Slasher lay on the ground beside Sonic's bed, listening to the slow beeping of the heart monitor. The only proper hospital in Riverbase was a school that had been unharmed by earthquakes, and the doctors from the city's two hospitals had set up facilities there. There were several dozen people being cared for, and Slasher had to threaten violence to get the doctors to look after Sonic. 

He was on life support now, scarcely alive. His heart beat once every two seconds, and his breathing was so slow that they had hooked him to a respirator at once. One of the doctors examining him had experience in Chaos injuries, but he confessed that he had never seen anything like this. He said that the only time a metabolism slowed so much without dying was during hibernation. It appeared that Sonic had had so much power flowing through him that he had shut down. 

The days crept by with no change. Slasher remained at Sonic's side. Tails and Tachyon came to visit Sonic, pale and quiet in the white bed. Tachyon said nothing the entire visit, but Tails stood and cried. He wanted to stay there until Sonic showed some change, but Slasher sent him home with Tachyon. "Tell everyone that he's alive, and I'm staying until he wakes up. And he will wake up, Tails, trust me." 

Nearly a week later, Slasher noticed Sonic's heart rate had sped up. His breathing grew stronger, and the doctors announced that they detected brainwaves again. Slasher maintained her post at his side, watching him like a doting mother. 

She was there when he opened his eyes. He couldn't speak around the tube in his mouth, but he clasped her clawed hand and smiled. 

He was removed from life support a few hours later, and was able to sit up and talk. "How'd I do, Slash?" 

"Good," said Slasher, smiling. "The world didn't end, if you've noticed." 

"Twilight's gone, right?" 

"Yes." 

Sonic frowned, trying to remember. "Everything's mixed up. We fought, right? And I pushed him through?" 

"Yes, and I handled Beast." 

Sonic looked at Slasher for a moment, glad to be alive, and content for the moment to lie still. She had several deep scratches along her muzzle, he noticed. "Slash, what happened to your face?" 

The raptor only looked at him, and Sonic remembered scratching Beast's face with his spines. "Slash ... did I do that?" 

She bobbed her head. "Beast and I seem to share the same hurts. When I bit her, a bite appeared on my arm. One of her wings was damaged, like mine was." 

Sonic thought about this. Slasher studied his face. He seemed to have no ill effects from the punishment he had taken, and yet ... He looked at her, his gaze steady. He smiled. "Did you think I was dead when I came back?" Slasher nodded, and he grinned. "C'mon, Slash. I told you Chaos never repeats itself. The first guy died, so it only stands to reason that the second guy survived." 

"I wasn't too rational at that point," replied Slasher. "You looked like you were dying." 

"I thought I was," said Sonic, looking down at the blankets. He hesitated, then went on, "I guess Shadow is dead, then." He looked at Slasher. "When the flux hit me ... I knew why he died. He had finished his mission, and--" his voice cracked "--he didn't have the light inside, like me." He could not put into words how as the distilled evil of millennia had blasted through him, it had parted and flowed around his soul, which was shielded by something or someone else. At that crucial instant, he had been protected. 

Sonic drew a deep breath and let it out. "When can I go home?" 

The hospital held him for another day, then pronounced him well and released him. He and Slasher stepped out into the warm summer sun and walked down the street, which had been cleared of debris. As they walked, Sonic began to glow, very faintly. He looked at himself and laughed. "Check this out, Slash! Residual charge!" 

Slasher eyed him. "How strange." 

"No kidding. Oh ..." Sonic frowned. "What happened to Twilight's neck thing?" 

"His torc?" Slasher looked blank. "You didn't have it when you came back." 

Sonic glanced at the blue sky and sighed. "I guess I vaporized it. But I guess it's best that the emeralds are separated, huh? Maybe it's unstable for them to be together." He jumped lightly and floated for a second above the sidewalk. "Look at this, Slasher! I'm still super or something!" 

"Or something, yeah," said Slasher. "Let's just get home." 

"Okay. Race you!" And Sonic was gone in a swirl of dust. Slasher bounded after him. 

* * * 

Sally was helping move supplies and furniture back into Knothole proper. She was glad to hear Sonic was alive, but she still missed him. It was a warm day, and she paused while rolling up a tent to mop her forehead. 

A boom like thunder echoed over the forest. A sonic boom. Sally turned, heart beating faster with excitement, and saw a blue figure pounding toward her, a grin on his face visible half a mile away. "Saaaaall!" he whooped, ploughing into her and knocking her over. "Whoops," he said, helping her up. "Don't know my own strength!" 

Sally was laughing too hard to care. "Sonic, you're back! You made it! Oh Sonic ..." 

When the two had calmed down, Sonic smiled mischievously. "Didn't you trust me, Sal? I said I'll always come back." 

"I know that here," said the squirrel, pointing to her chest, "but not here." She tapped her forehead. 

He laughed. "Chaos never repeats itself, Sal. Only Order does. Nothing like this will ever happen again." 

"Good," said Sally. "Knothole needs a strong hedgehog to help it move back to the village." 

Sonic rolled his eyes. "To help make order out of chaos, you mean. I guess some things never change." 

* * * 

On Earth, it was called a black hole. In space, it was called a collapsed nova burning by itself in the arm of a spiral galaxy. 

On Mobius, it was called a Chaos Field. 

An observer on the rim of their solar system would have seen the field dwindle down to nothing as a beam of energy, thin as a needle, blasted out of a planet. 

On Earth, no one knows why that black hole disappeared. And only a few on Mobius understand what happened the day the world almost ended. 

The End


End file.
